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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil prices rose on
Tuesday as investors focused on the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, looking past
tightening lockdowns in Europe and forecasts for a slower-than-expected recovery
in fuel demand, reported Reuters.
Brent crude settled at
USD50.76 a barrel, rising 47 cents, or 0.9%. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI)
crude settled at USD47.62 a barrel, gaining 1.3%, or 63 cents.
The United
States began vaccinating people on Monday as the country’s COVID-19 death toll
crossed the 300,000 mark. Britain and Canada have also begun to administer
shots.
“The crude market continues to seize upon the future outlook of
the post-pandemic period, which could be as soon as next summer,” said John
Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.
Crude oil throughput rose
by 3.2% year-over-year in China in November,a record. That helped investor
sentiment about coming increases in fuel demand, said Phil Flynn, senior analyst
at Price Futures Group in Chicago. China has been one of the rare countries
where oil demand has fully recovered from earlier this year.
“People
would assume that the oil demand surge is right around the corner,” Flynn
said.
Still, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday any impact
of vaccines on demand is still several months away, while OPEC said on Monday
oil demand will rise more slowly than expected.
Brent hit USD51.06 on
Dec. 10, highest since March, supported by vaccine approvals, even as the
infection rate has surged in most regions worldwide.
London stepped up
pandemic rules requiring bars and restaurants to close, Italy is considering
more stringent steps over Christmas, and Germany is likely to be under lockdown
until early 2021.
The latest snapshot of US oil supplies showed crude oil
stocks unexpectedly rose last week, according to the American Petroleum
Institute, an industry group.
Crude inventories swelled by 2 million
barrels in the week to Dec. 11 to about 495 million barrels, compared with
analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a draw of 1.9 million barrels, API
said.
Official government data was scheduled for Wednesday.
As
MRC
informed previously, global oil demand may have already peaked, according to
BP's latest long-term energy outlook, as the COVID-19 pandemic kicks the world
economy onto a weaker growth trajectory and accelerates the shift to cleaner
fuels.
Earlier this year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil
demand growth by 40% in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to
curb supplies to keep prices in check.
And in September 2019, six world's
major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia,
Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the
creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam
crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels.
The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP,
LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also
significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in
R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning
their base chemical production to renewable electricity.
Ethylene and
propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene
(PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,760,950 tonnes in the first ten
months of 2020, up by 3% year on year. Only high density polyethylene (HDPE) and
linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased. At the same time,
PP shipments to the Russian market reached 978,870 tonnes in
January-October 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports
plus imports minus producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of
exclusively of PP random copolymer increased. |
