Oil Trades Above $90 On China Reopening Optimism

Oil jumped after China announced some easing of its strict Covid Zero measures, a move that could spark more local and international travel and lift commodity demand.

As reported earlier, China reduced the amount of time people entering the country must spend in quarantine and will scrap a system that penalizes airlines for bringing Covid cases into the nation, according to the National Health Commission. WTI advanced more than 4% to trade above $90 a barrel…

… and the more oil keeps rising, the faster the upswing in gas prices will be in the coming days, considering that there is still about 2.74 million b/d in refinery outages as of Nov. 10, according to data compiled by Bloomberg (outages in the US were at 165,000 b/d, while in Russia, they were at 67,000 b/d)…

… and certainly when Biden’s daily drain of the SPR comes to an end, and send the price of oil on its merry way to $150.

In other news, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said OPEC+ will remain cautious on oil production, weeks after the group angered the US by lowering output. The 23-nation alliance, led by Riyadh and Russia, is set to meet on Dec. 4 to decide whether to cut production again, keep it stable or reverse course and pump more. Members are looking at the state of the global economy and seeing plenty of “uncertainties,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said.