According to the latest data from the EIA, US Energy
Information Administration, the US crude oil inventories recorded their biggest
drop in two months – a fall by 5.89 million barrels.
With that, three major global agencies that analyse
all aspects of the realm of energy finally emerged with a single voice with
regard to the future demand of crude oil; it is steadily recovering and
approaching the pre-pandemic level.
There is enough evidence to be optimistic: the combined
growth in China and the US is encouraging; the planes are back in the skies in
large numbers, slowly reaching the pre-pandemic level; the jet fuel
consumption has picked up, having been in stagnation for months.
Although the crude oil price slightly fell on
Thursday, in light of the latest encouraging data, there is no cause for
anxiety; the price will pick up again as the sparks for the price-engine are there
for all to see.
Despite the emergence of feel-good factors, the
situation in India is a major concern; the world’s third largest crude oil
consumer is going through a pretty disturbing phase of its pandemic; there were
over 200,000 new cases just on Thursday, leaving it as the second biggest
nation affected by the virus, after Brazil.
Successful vaccine rollout in the US and UK is
attributed for keeping pandemic threat at bay in both countries, although neither
is out of the woods yet. Although, India started a successful vaccine rollout a few months ago,
it slowly lost its momentum – due to lots of geographical factors, coupled with
inter-state politics.
Judging by the rate of increase in infections, India
may be on the brink of yet another lockdown; the capital, Delhi, will be under
curfew as of today and Mumbai, the commercial capital, will be under the same
soon.
All in all, it looks like we have to live with the
pandemic for another year until it naturally dies down despite the speed of the vaccine
rollout and its success; this is what happened with the pandemic of the Spanish
flue in 1918 that lasted two years – despite the absence of such a process called vaccine rollout at
that time.
