BP share price rises as oil inches above $50

The BP (LON:BP) share price rose in early trading on Monday, rising in line with an increase price in the price of WTI Oil to over $50 a barrel.

The oil market showed signs of strengthening over the weekend, with WTI Crude up 0.82 percent at $50.30, and Brent Crude up 0.52 percent to $55.91.

OPEC have recently raised their forecast for demand for the rest of 2017 and moving into 2018, with oil is now trading up near last week’s multi-month highs as damage from Hurricane Harvey depresses the amount of oil production from the US.

BP’s share price rose on oil’s strong start to the week, currently trading up 0.80 percent at 451.90p. There was also strength elsewhere in the sector as Royal Dutch Shell rose as much as 0.3% and Tullow Oil was up over 1 percent.

Deutsche Bank recently reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on BP shares and a target of 520p. While Deutsche Bank’s enthusiasm, analysts at Kepler Cheuvreux are more pessimistic and reiterated a Reduce rating 15^th September with a target of 430p.

In their last set of quarterly results, BP’s underlying replacement cost profit for the second quarter was $0.7 billion, with second-quarter operating cash flow.