- Oil slightly rebounds after a two-day slide of more than $7/Bbl
- Feb ’23 WTI gains nearly $1 this morning to trade around $74/Bbl
- The oil market continues to struggle with low levels of participation, with open interest near multi-year lows, making prices prone to significant intraday volatility
- The surge in Covid-19 cases across China dampens near-term demand, clouding the optimism over a demand boom from the world's largest oil importer
- However, China’s road traffic levels climbed by 33% last week after touching lows two weeks ago, according to Bloomberg data
- This could be short-lived, depending on how the nation handles the inevitable surge in virus cases that will accompany the reopening
- Colonial Pipeline Co. halted its Line 3 refined products pipeline on Wednesday due to a leak found near the delivery station at Danville, VA (BBG)
- The pipeline transports over 0.8 MMBbl/d of refined products, such as distillates and gasoline, to the NY Harbor market and is expected to restart on Saturday after unscheduled maintenance
- The current pipeline shutdown is the second disruption since the Keystone outage last month, and it comes after the cyberattack on Colonial in 2021
- Saudi Arabia continued to implement the OPEC+ agreement by maintaining its oil export levels last month (BBG)
- The nation shipped approximately 7.21 MMBbl/d in December, unchanged from November levels, said an official familiar with the matter
- The kingdom produced just below its OPEC+ target of 10.48 MMBbl/d, added the official
- After the sharp decline in oil prices, OPEC+ may be on alert. If the price of oil declines even further, the group may consider making another preemptive cut