Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 2/4/22

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $2.003; Month Ago: $1.785; Year Ago: $2.795. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $2.410; Month Ago: $2.429; Year Ago: $3.072.

Futures climbed as much as 1.3 percent in New York after declining 0.9 percent Tuesday. Inventories expanded by 1.44 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report. That’s less than half the projected 3.9 million-barrel increase the government is forecast to report Wednesday. Some U.S. refiners are delaying maintenance to take advantage of strong margins. While oil has rebounded the past two weeks, crude in the U.S. has struggled to hold above $50 a barrel as prices beyond that level make some shale profitable and boost supply. At the same time, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies are said to be discussing extending by more than three months the output cuts that expire in March. Iraq, the group’s second-biggest producer, has said production should be reduced by an additional 1 percent to help rebalance the market. Click Read More below for additional detail.

Crude prices started the week on an upbeat note on Monday, boosted by expectations that oil producing countries will agree to extend an output cut at their meeting at the end of this month. Under the original terms of the deal, OPEC and 10 other non-OPEC countries led by Russia agreed to cut production by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) for six months. The agreement was extended in May of this year for a period of nine more months until March 2018 in a bid to reduce global oil inventories and support oil prices. Prices received another boost as a sizable weekly drop in active U.S. oil rigs to the lowest level since May fed expectations for a slowdown in domestic crude output growth. Click Read More below for additional information.