Oil up 2% on brighter demand outlook and Mexican outage

London - Mexico offshore platform fire takes 400,000 bpd offline; US to sell up to 20 million barrels of SPR stocks

By Reuters

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Brent crude oil futures were up $1.50, or 2.2 per cent, at $70.25 a barrel by 13442GMT while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained $1.34, or two per cent, to $66.98. — File photo
Brent crude oil futures were up $1.50, or 2.2 per cent, at $70.25 a barrel by 13442GMT while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained $1.34, or two per cent, to $66.98. — File photo

Published: Tue 24 Aug 2021, 8:10 PM

Oil prices rose on Tuesday, extending sharp gains on a bullish demand outlook as U.S. regulators issued their first full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine and Mexico suffered a large production outage.

Brent crude oil futures were up $1.50, or 2.2 per cent, at $70.25 a barrel by 13442GMT while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained $1.34, or two per cent, to $66.98.


Both benchmarks jumped more than five per cent on Monday, helped by a weaker dollar, after marking their biggest weekly losses in more than nine months last week.

Though a resurgent pandemic has fuelled health system concerns, “economically harmful containment measures seem rather unlikely”, said Julius Baer analyst Norbert Rucker, citing the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines.


The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday issued full approval for the Pfizer/BioNTech two-dose vaccine, having authorised it for emergency use last December. Health officials hope the action will convince unvaccinated Americans that the shot is safe and effective.

Analysts said that China’s apparent success in fighting the spread of the Delta variant also boosted demand sentiment, with no cases of locally transmitted infections reported in latest data.

Also supporting oil prices was a fire on an oil platform off Mexico on Sunday. The fire killed five workers and halted 421,000 barrels per day of production, representing about a quarter of the country’s overall output.

The US Department of Energy on Monday said it would sell up to 20 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) oil stocks to comply with legislation, with deliveries to take place between October 1 and December 15.

Meanwhile, Indian refiners’ crude throughput in July bounced to its highest in three months as fuel demand rebounded and buoyed prices. — Reuters


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