Author: David Cohen

“Despite the fact that in reality it will take time for a global vaccine campaign to be implemented, time during which oil demand will suffer, positive news is breaking daily about the vaccine deliveries,”

Oil prices gained today as Pfizer announced its vaccine was more effective than previously predicted. While this is fantastic news for oil markets, it is important to note that real world vaccine efficacy rates may vary from the headline figure.

Oil prices were mostly flat today after yesterday’s strong session as increased measures to control the spread of the virus are putting a damper on implied demand. “Concerns of more lockdowns are hurting near-term demand expectations,”

“Vaccine euphoria has already been priced in heavily since last week, but a second remedy to COVID-19 shows that a large-scale vaccination program, with sufficient amounts for the global population, is somewhat closer now,”

Oil prices fell today pressured by rising COVID cases and further lockdown restrictions. Production in Libya is also swelling, reaching as much as 1.125 MM/bpd.

Oil prices traded down after initially trading up for the first half of the session as a larger than expected rise in inventories capped gains.

Crude prices continued to rise today as vaccine hopes continued to be supportive of prices and preliminary polling showed a drop in crude inventories.

When the European lockdowns were announced, I never saw sentiment in oil turn so negative so quickly,” said John Kilduff,

If you all of a sudden have a vaccine and we start opening up and life starts getting back to normal, we go from a perception of an oversupplied market to a very tight market next year and that could be very supportive for prices,”