Mid-Week Review – September 22, 2021

Oil prices lifted on expectations for another drop in U.S. crude inventories

Oil futures rose Wednesday, finding support after industry data showed a large drop in U.S. crude inventories. “Prices were additionally lent buoyancy by the decline in U.S. crude oil stocks reported yesterday by the [American Petroleum Institute], even though this was due primarily to the production outages in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Barbara Lambrecht, analyst at Commerzbank, in a note. Oil and natural-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been slow to recover in the wake of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall on the Louisiana Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Click Here to learn more from Market Watch.

OPEC+ Struggles To Lift Production As Oil Market Tightens Further

The OPEC+ group lifted its production in August, but underinvestment and maintenance work has hampered the group’s ability to raise production—and supply could be insufficient to meet the world’s growing oil demand, Reuters suggested on Tuesday. Global oil demand has recently risen to near-record levels as global activity picks up steam despite the pandemic. In response, OPEC+ agreed to increase oil production starting in August by another 400,000 bpd each month. But not all producers have responded to the call for more barrels. Click Here to read more from Oil Price.

Soaring gas prices, colder winter could boost oil prices, says Goldman

Goldman Sachs said that with the surge in global gas prices, a colder winter in Europe and Asia could in turn boost demand for oil, driving a $5 per barrel upside risk to its fourth quarter 2021 Brent price forecast of $80 a barrel. A global surge in wholesale power and gas prices has prompted concerns of high winter energy bills and shortages, having already forced some energy supplies out of business in Britain. Click Here to read more from Reuters.

Between Covid-19 and the flu, health care professionals are bracing themselves for the winter ahead, expert says

The US is battling rising death tolls and strained hospital resources under the Covid-19 pandemic, and all that could be made more difficult by the upcoming flu season, health experts said. “We are bracing ourselves for an awfully busy winter ahead,” Associate Dean of Public Health at Brown University Dr. Megan Ranney told CNN Tuesday. The United States is once again at a point where an average of more than 2,000 people are dying of Covid-19 every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Click Here to read more from CNN.