Oil Marks Crash Anniversary with Rally
(Bloomberg) -- Oil surged above $64 a barrel a year to the day after futures for the U.S. benchmark collapsed below zero, with the world’s most important commodity extending a powerful rally on bets for better demand as leading economies battle the pandemic. The gains were aided by a weaker dollar.
West Texas Intermediate surged 1.1%, extending Monday’s modest climb, and last week’s significant jump. In the U.S., refinery runs have climbed to the highest in over a year as activity picks up, with that optimism overshadowing concerns that demand in India is suffering amid a fresh wave of infections. An additional boost for crude came from the drop in the dollar, which fell for a seventh session, boosting the appeal of commodities priced in the currency.
Crude is up more than 30% in 2021 as investors bet the reopening of economies will stoke consumption and keep draining global inventories. As demand picks up, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies are planning a cautious return of some supply from next month. The OPEC+ grouping may skip a full-scale ministerial meeting planned for next week, possibly indicating members don’t see much need to revise current strategy.
“If prices sustain in the current band, they wouldn’t want to make any changes to what’s been agreed for May-July,” said Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights in Singapore. Still, “crude appears to be under-pricing the risk of a demand slowdown in India and Europe countering gains in the U.S.,” she said.
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Oil’s forward curve suggests growing confidence, with the widely watched spread between WTI’s contracts for December this year and 2022 at the widest backwardation in about a month. That’s a bullish pattern, with prices for the final month of 2021 more than $4.50 a barrel above those a year further out. Brent’s prompt spread is also backwardated, with a gap of 67 cents a barrel.
A year ago today, the global oil market faced an unprecedented crisis, with WTI closing at -$37.63 a barrel. Prices went negative after lockdowns savaged demand and producers Saudi Arabia and Russia had flooded the market in a price war. A restoration of OPEC+ unity marked by deep supply cuts, and the development of vaccines, helped prices to stage a steady recovery.
At present, OPEC+ has decided to revive just over 2 million barrels a day of the 8 million it’s been keeping offline, with the supply to be returned in stages over the three months to July. If the ministerial gathering is scrapped, the coalition may go ahead with just a monitoring committee meeting on April 28.
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