Oil price is
on the rise and the EIA, the US Energy Information Administration, has not
released its latest US oil inventory report yet – a reliable factor that
influences the current crude oil price.
The
confidence of investors, however, indicates the inventories may have been down during
the Christmas week too.
The American
Petroleum Institute, API, meanwhile, predicted a draw in crude oil inventories
of 4.785 million barrels for the week ending December 25; the prediction of the
same by analysts, however, was 43% of that figure for the same period.
Although yet
another vaccine was approved by the health authorities in the United Kingdom,
the national mood could easily be eclipsed by the surging infections and the struggles
faced by the NHS, the National Health Service, to cope with the patients.
That means
there is a strong possibility of elevating the current tier, to a notch above,
seriously restricting the movement of the public – and traffic too.
A
development of that kind in a major Western economy will affect the demand for
crude oil and has the potential to skew the healthy growth of the oil price
during the past few weeks.
As far as
jet fuel consumption is concerned, meanwhile, there are no signs of green
shoots yet. The emergence of new variant of the Coronavirus, first in the UK
and then gradually in the rest of world, dampened the hopes of the aviation industry
for a quick recovery.
The
following live image, taken on Wednesday afternoon, shows the sad state of the
industry in crisis – the state of the Heathrow airport, near London, which used
to be one of the busiest airports in the world with a plane landing or taking
off in every 2-minute intervals.
Despite the
gloom, the aviation industry is hopeful that they can rise from the ashes
again, once the pandemic shows irreversible signs of decline – as normally what
happens with pathogens after a certain period of time.
Nobody doubts
the collective resilience of the industry to weather the storms.
