Oil prices rose at the beginning of the week amid optimism about the recovery in oil demand in China and concerns that insufficient investment will reduce oil supplies in the future, as well as the maintenance of production limitations of major producers, writes Reuters.

Oil prices went up as Brent gained 70 cents, or 0.8% to $83.70 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March delivery was trading at $76.89 a barrel, up 55 cents or 0.7%.

Both benchmarks were down $2 a barrel after Friday’s data from the U.S. on rising domestic oil and gasoline inventories, and closed about 4 percent lower last week.

Then there was also the announcement that the U.S. would sell 26 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves, which puts some downward pressure on the market, although experts believe global supply is likely to remain unchanged given Russia and OPEC+ production cuts. This refers to the agreement between OPEC members and its allies, made last October, to reduce oil production targets by 2 million barrels per day by the end of 2023.

Russia plans to cut oil production by 500,000 bpd, or about 5%, in March after the West imposed a price cap on Russian oil and oil products.

At the same time, along with the reopening of facilities in China, as well as the recovery of demand in China and globally for aircraft, the risk of higher prices is increasing. Record high oil imports to China are expected this year due to increased demand for transportation fuel and the commissioning of new refineries. Along with demand in China, it will grow in India, which has become the largest buyer of Russian oil.

But there may be a future shortage of oil and prices could rise as much as $100 a barrel by the end of the year, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: NYSE:GS) in a Feb. 19 note.

Earlier, we reported that oil prices were falling at an accelerated pace.