SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices rose on Tuesday as a cold front shut wells and refineries in Texas, the biggest crude producing state in the United States, the world’s biggest oil producer.
Brent crude was up 17 cents at $63.47 a barrel at 0621 GMT, after rising to its highest since January 2020 in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 66 cents to $60.13 a barrel.
“The unexpected U.S. supply disruption provides another short-term price recovery bridge that has likely taken oil prices to a level where markets were eventually heading but just a little bit quicker than expected,” Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at Axi said in a note on Tuesday.
The cold weather in the U.S. halted Texas oil wells and refineries on Monday and forced restrictions on natural gas and crude pipeline operators.
The rare deep freeze prompted the state’s electric power suppliers to impose rotating blackouts, leaving nearly 3 million homes and businesses without power.
Texas produces roughly 4.6 million barrels of oil per day and is home to 31 refineries, the most of any U.S. state, according to Energy Information Administration data, including some of the country’s largest.
Prices also gained as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it struck airports in Saudi Arabia with drones, raising supply concerns in the world’s biggest oil exporter, and on optimism for a global economic recovery amid accelerated COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said on Monday morning it had intercepted and destroyed an explosive-laden drone fired by the Houthis toward the kingdom.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
