Oil Prices Rise as Colonial Debacle Ends And U.S. Markets Receive Deliveries

Meanwhile, India reports the beginning of Covid infection declines: File Image/Pixabay

Once more, concern over Covid rates in India was cited as the main reason why oil gains on Friday were capped, even though it was reported that infections have started to drop in that country due to aggressive vaccination.

However, the restart of the Colonial Pipeline in the U.S. and the resumption of oil deliveries in all its markets caused Brent to climb $1.54, or 2.3 percent, at $68.60 per barrel  and West Texas Intermediate to increase $1.45, or 2.3 percent, at $65.27.

Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc., said, "Oil is rallying because supply is moving again, whether it is through the pipeline or the Mississippi River; tempering the excitement is ongoing concern about COVID cases in India."

One of the concerns is that the Covid variant causing havoc in India is spreading to other countries; however, for the record it was reported earlier this week that the existing vaccines are effective in dealing with this variant, and on Friday it was also reported that India's vaccination program is finally resulting in a decline of infections and deaths in three southern states and two major cities.

Elsewhere in the world, promising news underscoring a general resurgence in economic recovery continued on Friday: higher oil prices were credited for supporting economic recovery in Canada, which is driven to a substantial degree by oil exports; and in Russia, energy giant Rosneft on Friday reported first-quarter net income of 149 billion roubles ($2 billion), almost fully recovering from a loss a year ago.

As for the concern in analytical circles that the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack could be replicated again in the near future, security experts at the FBI stated that signs point to the attack being a case of a bungled extortion plot, rather than the coordinated work of hackers intent on compromising America's energy grid.

They added that such ransomware attacks are common and that suspected culprit DarkSide was motivated by financial gain rather than compromising America's supply of gas.