Markets

While there were some day-on-day declines due to the expectation that Iran may resume crude exports as negotiations over lifting sanctions were making some progress, NYMEX WTI and ICE Brent soared on Friday due to the tensions at the Russian-Ukrainian border.

In addition to sharp weekly price increases over the week ending Feb. 4, NYMEX WTI, ICE Brent, and DME Oman crude futures posted their largest month-on-month jumps since Feb. of last year.

NYMEX WTI and RBOB, ICE Brent and gasoil, and DME Oman crude futures posted their sixth week-on-week price increases over the week ending Jan. 18 while NYMEX ULSD saw its fifth weekly gain in a row.

Even though most petroleum futures prices pulled back on Thursday and Friday, the gains that had been made on previous days were enough to result in week-on-week rises.

Market chatter throughout the week seemed firmly focused on tightening fundamentals.

Reduced crude output from Libya and Kazakhstan as well as persistently low production from several OPEC members—combined with more projections that the Omicron variant will have a limited and short-term impact on demand—helped push futures prices for crudes and refined products to highs not seen in over a month.

After 2020's price rout, 2021 was a year of recovery. From the end of 2020 to the end of 2021, ICE Brent futures prices gained 50.2%, DME Oman crude was up by 51.0% and NYMEX WTI soared by ..

After concerns over the Omicron variant lessened somewhat in the previous week, worries about the effectiveness of existing vaccines darkened sentiment over the week ending Dec. 17.

Even though the new COVID-19 variant has been found to be more highly infectious than previous strains, it has, so far, resulted in fewer hospitalizations than had been feared, so the demand impact is now expected to be less than initial projections indicated.

As more cases of the new COVID-19 variant appeared in various countries around the world and in states all across the US, futures prices for NYMEX WTI and RBOB, ICE Brent and gasoil, and DME Oman crude fell over the week ending Dec. 3, though the declines were much less severe than they had been in the previous week.