Oil futures were flat to slightly lower on Friday, as traders looked for signs of stability following the fall of the previous session fueled by concerns about Europe’s slow vaccine spread.
West Texas Raw Intermediate for delivery in April CL.1,
CLJ21,
went up 1 cent at $ 60.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. May WTI CLK21,
the most commercial contract, hair was at $ 60.06 per barrel. May Brent crude BRN00,
BRNK21,
the global benchmark, it went down 20 cents, or 0.4%, at $ 63.08 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
WTI times fell 7.1% on Thursday, while Brent fell 6.9%.
Fears of energy demand were largely blamed in the summer by the slow release of the European vaccine and new industrial locks in Italy and France in response to rising coronavirus cases.
“The corporate market and the paper have been disconnected for some time now, with the corporate market weaker than futures suggest,” said Warren Patterson, chief executive of product strategy at ING, in a note.
“Chinese purchases have been softer in recent weeks and the growth of Iran’s flow has not helped. So it seems that an element of the futures market is falling backwards in line with the corporate market, ”he said.
Germany and other countries were starting to vaccinate with the coronavirus vaccine made by AstraZeneca, following a recommendation from European regulators that the benefits of the burn outweigh the risks. The European Medicines Agency said on Thursday that the vaccine was safe but could not be linked to a small number of rare blood clots reported on the continent, and that patients should be told to look for signs. any warnings.
Michael Tran, commodity analyst at RBC Capital Markets, attributed the slowdown in crude oil purchases in China, arguing that the softest corporate market can be explained by the maintenance of Asian brewing.
“China is simply pulling fewer barrels off the open market as units have several more weeks of turnover. Headlines are often quick to slow China down, but our level of conviction is with the notion that end-user indicators of Chinese product demand are not only strong, but that they continue to ‘a stronger move,’ he wrote.
Tran said he would not fight “helpful correction” after a 70% rally from early November. “Wait until you run out to run the course. We see the high $ 50s for WTI as a great opportunity to get a long way into the backdrop of such helpful summer gasoline that we have seen in almost a decade, ”he said.