Crude Recovers Moderately On Optimism Re China Demand

Oil prices are up during today’s APAC trading after declining sharply on Friday to be lower on the week. Crude is moderately higher today with WTI up 0.6% to $76.80/bbl and Brent up 0.6% to $83.55. Chinese demand hopes have been driving the market today.

• WTI and Brent are back above the February 9 lows of $76.52 and $83.05 respectively. Today WTI reached a low of $76.12 followed by a high of $76.85 and Brent a low of $82.73 and high of $83.64. Brent is above its 50-day simple moving average, whereas WTI is below.
• Demand fears came to the fore again late last week with rising US stocks and hawkish Fed comments but optimism re China continues. Data showed that air travel is rising robustly with the top 3 airlines at 70% capacity.
• The US is looking to introduce new export controls and sanctions on Russia, focussed on energy, defence, financial institutions and certain people, according to Bloomberg, as the first year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches.
• The US is closed today for the President’s holiday. There is euro area preliminary consumer confidence for February later. The FOMC minutes are published Wednesday and there are Fed speakers over the rest of the week. Preliminary February PMIs and US January consumer spending are also scheduled this week.