Oil rises for third day in a row toward $50

The price of crude oil (February Brent futures) at 1527 GMT on Thursday, December 10, was up 1.45% to $49.57 a barrel brent. The “black gold” market is rising for the third day in a row, trying to reach a psychologically significant level of $50 per barrel and rose today to $49.77 per barrel Brent.

Support comes from news of the start of active vaccination worldwide, raising hopes of lifting boiler restrictions and increasing demand for hydrocarbons. On Wednesday, canada’s Ministry of Health approved the use of the drug with COVID-19 from Pfizer-BioNTech. Earlier, the US regulator confirmed the effectiveness of the vaccine developed by these companies. Mass vaccinations in the UK also began this week.

Oil quotation support comes from news from Iraq, where two oil wells were bombed in the southwestern province of Kirkuk. However, these wells are small and production interruptions will not become critical. Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil inventories (excluding the strategic reserve) have risen by a record 15.2 million barrels (3.1%) since April to 503.2 million barrels with forecasts of a 1.4 million drop, the country’s energy ministry estimates. U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels (1.8 percent) over the past week to 237.9 million barrels, though analysts had forecast 2.3 million. Distillate stocks rose 5.2 million barrels (3.6%) 151.1 million barrels, with an expected increase of 1.4 million barrels. U.S. refining gains rose this week to 79.9 percent from 78.2 percent a week earlier.

Oil reserves at the country’s largest terminal in Cushing have decreased by 1.4 million barrels to 58.2 million over the past week. U.S. strategic oil reserves fell by 100,000 barrels to 638.1 million barrels during the week, the energy ministry estimates. U.S. crude oil production was unchanged at 11.1 million barrels per day last week, the country’s energy ministry estimates. The average over the past four weeks was 11.025 million barrels per day.