A man idle in a filling station of Sinopec, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, in Shanghai, China, on March 22, 2018.
Johannes EIsele | AFP | Getty Spits
Oil prices climbed on Wednesday as China reported its lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late January, stoking investor aspires that fuel demand in the world’s second-largest oil consumer may begin to recover from the epidemic.
Brent crude was up 98 cents, or 1.8%, at $54.99 per barrel at 0335 GMT. U.S. West Texas In-between (WTI) rose 81 cents, or 1.4%, to $50.65 a barrel.
According to data through Tuesday, the growth rate of new coronavirus occasions in China has slowed to the lowest since Jan. 30. Still, international experts remained cautious over forecasting when the outbreak clout reach a peak.
Travel restrictions to and from China and quarantines have cut fuel usage. The two biggest Chinese refiners from said they will reduce their processing by about 940,000 barrels per day (bpd) as a result of the consumption drop, or approximately 7% of their 2019 processing runs.
“As the growth rate of new cases has decreased … that has improved the (hawk) sentiment,” said Kim Kwang-rae, commodities analyst at Samsung Futures in Seoul.
The demand concerns from the outbreak ahead Brent and WTI to their lowest in 13 months on Monday. Both benchmarks are down more than 20% from anticyclones reached in January.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Tuesday cut its global oil demand growth forecast for this year by 310,000 bpd as the virus outbreak crimps oil consumption in China.
Order worries flipped the oil market into a contango last week, a market structure where prices for near-term arrangements are lower than those for later contracts, indicating ample supplies.
Contango spread in Brent is unchanged at 15 cents per barrel from a week at the cracker, while the WTI contango is at 24 cents a barrel, from 17 cents last week.
“Front month values are down around 20% since the start of the outbreak, with Brazilian, West African and Russian crudes – all current with independent (Chinese) refiners in Shandong – under pressure,” said Roger Diwan, vice president of monetary services at IHS Markit, in a note.
On the supply side, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies including Russia, be informed as OPEC+, recommended a further cut of 600,000 bpd last week to stem the oil price fall.
However, Russia has been of two minds to commit to the additional cut, while Saudi Arabia wanted global major oil producers to agree a quick oil supply cut.
U.S. coarse inventories rose by 6 million barrels in the week to Feb. 7 to 438.9 million barrels, beating analysts’ expectations for an enhance of 3 million barrels, data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed.
Official EIA data is due on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT).