FX.co ★ Vaccine hopes and demand recovery: oil prices rise steadily on Thursday

Since Thursday morning, global prices for black gold have been showing positive dynamics against the background of growing optimism around the COVID-19 vaccine.

Around noon, the price of February futures for the North Sea oil mixture Brent increased by 0.47% to $49.09 per barrel, and January futures for WTI oil by 0.59% to $45.79 per barrel.

Experts attribute the confident trend of the oil market to the beginning of vaccination of the UK population against coronavirus infection. Another reason for hopes for a bright future was the statement of the American regulator about the high effectiveness of the antivirus drug developed jointly by Pfizer and BioNTech. This announcement further brings hopes for early approval of the vaccine in the United States closer. So, vaccination in America may begin as early as the next weekend.

News of the development and introduction of an antivirus drug is encouraging investors to quickly recover demand, which has been hit by government restrictions on movement. But in the short term, the price of oil remains under negative pressure from the disturbed balance of supply and demand. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday that commercial black gold reserves in the United States for the first week of December increased by 3.1% – 15.2 million barrels. At the same time, experts predicted a decrease of 1.4 million.

However, to date, even such undesirable facts do not interfere with the optimism of market participants. They just seem to ignore them. And promising news about the antivirus vaccine prevails over any negative statistics from analysts.

The latest information from Iraq also provides considerable support for oil prices. So, on Wednesday, fires occurred at two oil wells in the province of Kirkuk after a terrorist attack. Despite the small size of the wells, the news raised some concerns about production disruptions.