<\/p>\n
Futures in New York dropped 4.3% on Friday, the largest one-day decline in more than a week. Increasing expectations over OPEC+ delaying its planned output increase in January and a post-election rally in equities helped crude prices with a strong start to the week. But a string of renewed lockdowns in Europe and record case counts in the U.S. kept any upward price momentum in check.<\/p>\n
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Conflicting themes have emerged over what the prospect of a divided government means for the oil market with Democrat Joe Biden appearing to be on the brink of victory in the U.S. presidential race. A split Congress reduces the likelihood of President Donald Trump\u2019s tax cuts being rolled back under a Biden presidency, but also means any virus aid package may be thin and only come after a drawn out negotiation process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe explosion in Covid-19 is a serious demand destruction event\u201d for oil, Bob Yawger, head of the futures division at Mizuho Securities, said in a note. \u201cCrude oil is looking exhausted and may be vulnerable to a pullback.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The new surge in coronavirus cases has presented a fresh threat to oil\u2019s fragile demand recovery, with governments rethinking reopening plans to curb the spread of Covid-19. Meanwhile, the decision by Royal Dutch Shell Plc to shut its Convent refinery in south Louisiana as it continues to seek a buyer adds to a string of refinery closures in the wake of anemic demand.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSentiment around oil is not very good right now,\u201d said Bill O\u2019Grady, executive vice president at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis. \u201cThere are worries about oversupply and under demand, and the surge in the virus count both in the United States and Europe is raising concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Prices<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Biden is nearing victory after taking the lead in Pennsylvania over Trump, with expectations that a new administration could attempt to impact a variety of U.S. energy policy areas, such as fracking and relations with Iran. Still, uncertainty lingers as Trump\u2019s campaign promises legal challenges that could draw out results, though its lawsuits to challenge the count have gained little traction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, as the market continues to wrestle with abundant stockpiles amid a pandemic-induced demand slump, the world\u2019s largest independent provider of oil storage said it has no space for hire at key fuel trading locations. Royal Vopak NV\u2019s total occupancy rate was the highest its been for any three-month period since the start of 2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2013With assistance from Alex Longley.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 2020 Bloomberg L.P.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Futures in New York dropped 4.3% on Friday, the largest one-day decline in more than a week. Increasing expectations over OPEC+ delaying its planned output increase in January and a post-election rally in equities helped crude prices with a strong start to the week. But a string of renewed lockdowns in Europe and record case …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[13099,1561,166,13098,3200,3586,1913,1366],"class_list":["post-20944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-election","tag-gain","tag-oil","tag-pares","tag-surge","tag-uncertainty","tag-virus","tag-weekly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/20945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}