Oil Crude up; Algeria sets reference price for oil at $60 barrel

RIYADH: Oil prices remain unchanged on Monday, as most markets were closed for holidays due to Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Oil prices settled about $3 per barrel higher on Friday for a second straight week of gains after Moscow said it could cut crude output in response to the G7 price cap on Russian exports.
Brent crude settled at $83.92, up by $2.94 or 3.6 percent, while US West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $79.56 a barrel, up $2.07, or 2.7 percent. Both benchmarks recorded their biggest weekly gains since October.
Algeria sets reference price for oil at $60 barrel through 2023-2025 Algeria has set the reference price for crude oil at $60 a barrel through 2023-2025, state news agency APS said on Sunday, citing the 2023 budget approved earlier in the day by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. The budget set the market price for crude oil at $70 a barrel during the same period. The North African country expects inflation to reach 5.1 percent and sees economic growth at 4.1 percent in 2023, APS said.
The president stressed the importance of raising gas output in order to boost exports, APS added.
Mexico’s newest oil refinery now seen working at half capacity in mid-2023
Mexican state oil company Pemex’s newest refinery will reach half of its crude processing capacity in July, the national president said on Friday, marking the latest shift in timing for the project’s operations.
The Olmeca oil refinery, being built next to the Dos Bocas port, is set to be Pemex’s eighth when it comes online. It is key to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s plan to make the country self-sufficient in gasoline and diesel, ending longstanding heavy dependence on imports, mainly from US refiners.
Describing the construction of the refinery in his home state, Tabasco, as having happened in “world record time,” Lopez Obrador said, “on July 1, it will begin to process 170,000 barrels per day of crude oil.”
By September 15, the day before Mexican Independence Day, it would process its full capacity of 340,000 bpd and yield 280,000 bpd of gasoline and diesel, Lopez Obrador said, posting on Twitter. The president did not specify whether the refinery would produce gasoline or diesel before July 1 or whether the date would mark the first barrels of crude processed there.