The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts an average price per barrel of oil at $ 50.03 for the year 2021, up 20% compared to its average of 2020, reports this Tuesday the site OilPrice.

The IMF is thus raising its forecasts for 2021 made last October, during which the international institution expected an average barrel to reach 46.7 dollars this year. The average price per barrel stood at $41.29 in 2020, affected by the coronavirus pandemic that brought the global economy to its knees.
 

The IMF also forecasts an average price per barrel of around $48.82 for next year, in 2022. The IMF calculates the price of a barrel of oil by averaging the three main benchmark crudes, namely Brent, US WTI and Dubai Light.

The barrel of Brent from the North Sea, a benchmark for Algerian oil, returned yesterday Tuesday above the $56 mark. On Wednesday, it started the day higher ($ 56.31 at 11:40 am), after the announcement of the decline of 5.3 million barrels of crude inventories in the United States last week.

Oil prices are also driven by the lowest number of new cases of Covid-19 infections in more than two weeks in China, according to the agencies.