| At 9:57 am Singapore time (0157 GMT), the ICE February Brent futures contract was up 43 cents/b (0.58%) from the previous close at $74.41/b, while the NYMEX February light sweet crude contract was 55 cents/b (0.77%) higher at $71.67/b.
API
Crude -3.670M
Cushing +1.272M
Gasoline +3.701M
Distillate -0.849M
Analysts said Asian markets were being lifted by the strong performance in the US trading session overnight, as initial fears over the growing spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus sent oil prices crashing by close to 5% on Dec. 20 eased. The growing optimism saw both benchmarks settling higher by 3.4%-3.7% overnight. US President Joe Biden said Dec. 21 the government will provide half a billion test kits to American households, ramp up hospital support and create more pop-up vaccination sites, while ruling out lockdowns in the leadup to Christmas. (S&P Global Platts)
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson similarly said Dec. 21 that the country will not see additional lockdown measures, at least before Christmas.
Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts Dec. 21 expected US commercial crude stocks to have fallen 3.9 million barrels to around 424.4 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 17. US gasoline inventories were expected to have climbed around 600,000 barrels to 219.2 million barrels over the same period, while total distillate stocks were expected to have declined 1.6 million barrels to 122.2 million barrels. Data from the American Petroleum Institute released Dec. 21 showed US crude oil stocks falling by 3.7 million barrels last week, media reports indicated. (S&P Global Platts)
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