Oil refinery (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Oil market on October 7: Key numbers
Brent crude moved back above $100 a barrel on October 7 after attacks on two Saudi airports in the south, one near an Aramco refinery, revived supply fears, even as Saudi Arabia said East-West pipeline flows had recovered to 5.8 million barrels a day.
$101.49: Brent crude, according to OilPrice.com.
$90.14: WTI crude.
5.8 million: barrels a day Saudi Arabia says the East-West pipeline is carrying.
400,000: barrels a day at the Aramco refinery in Jazan.
12 million: barrels of crude leaving the Persian Gulf daily, according to Vitol.
Three people were wounded in the attacks on the two airports near the Yemen border, according to Al Jazeera and Turkiye Today.
The authority did not say who carried out the attacks.
Jazan is home to a 400,000 barrel a day Aramco refinery, according to OilPrice.com.
The Houthis, a Yemen-based group, have claimed other strikes on Saudi targets, but these claims have not been independently verified in the reports.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that flows through the East-West pipeline had recovered to 5.8 million barrels a day.
The minister’s statement countered reports that the pipeline had shut down again, according to OilPrice.com.
Vitol estimates that about 12 million barrels of crude and 2 million barrels of fuels leave the Persian Gulf each day, according to Reuters as cited by OilPrice.com.
Analysts at ING described a tug-of-war between improving regional supply and lingering threats, and said the market will stay nervous about disruptions.
Supertanker rates have been above $1 million a day, with costs also rising for smaller vessels, according to Sparta Commodities as cited by OilPrice.com.
A Gulf storm that threatened US output was another factor in the rebound, according to FX Empire.
A G7 release of 100 million barrels of crude and diesel from emergency stocks had been announced earlier in the week.
On October 6, Brent had slipped to around $99.9 a barrel, and on October 8 crude oil rose by nearly 3% as Indian shares fell.
India imports most of the crude oil it uses, so higher global prices add to inflation and to pressure on the rupee.
Oil refinery (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0