It's been a pretty decent end to the trading week so far this Friday for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). The ASX 200 has added a healthy 0.82% so far today to 6,946 points. But the Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) share price is doing even better.
Santos shares are currently up an index-beating 1.10% at $7.32 a share. That comes after this ASX 200 energy share rose as high as $7.44 in earlier trading, a rise worth more than 2% at the time.
So how is Santos managing to be an ASX 200 winner today?
Well, since Santos is an ASX oil share, our first port of call should be the crude oil price itself. According to Bloomberg, oil prices have been rising for the last few days. Back on 26 July, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures was US$94.98 a barrel.
But, at the time of writing, these WTI futures are now going for US$96.69 a barrel. So there has been a definite uptick in the value of crude oil over the past few days.
This could be behind the strong performance of the Santos share price this Friday.
Santos and ASX energy shares rise on higher oil price
But it's not just Santos shares that are enjoying a day in the sun today.
Take the Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) share price. Woodside is the largest energy share on the ASX 200. Its shares are also up today, having risen by 0.88% to $32.10 each.
Looking at the Beach Energy Ltd (ASX: BPT) share price and we see a similar pattern. Beach has risen by 1.39% so far today to $1.82 a share.
So we are seeing some fairly consistent moves in the ASX oil shares space, which points to an industry-wide trend. As such, we can conclude that it is probably the strength in the oil price itself which is largely responsible for the outperformance of the Santos share price so far today.
At the current Santos share price, this ASX 200 energy share has a market capitalisation of $24.61 billion, with a dividend yield of 2.66%.
