Oil falls on fading outage fears

Oil prices fell on Tuesday on fading fears of a prolonged outage at the largest US fuel pipeline system while India’s coronavirus crisis and a tech-led sell-off in global stock markets also weighed. Brent crude futures dropped 83 cents, or 1.21%, to $67.49 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 84 cents, or 1.29%, to $64.08. Colonial Pipeline, which transports more than 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, said that it was working to restore much of its operations by the end of the week. Traders booked at least four tankers to store refined oil products off the US Gulf Coast refining hub after a cyber-attack that knocked out the pipeline, shipping data showed on Tuesday. The US gasoline futures contract and US heating oil futures, which rose after the outage, retreated to pre-Friday levels on the prospect of the restart.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2021.

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