Crude oil futures rose as much as 2% to trade around $43.2 a barrel on Monday, its highest level in nearly three months boosted by prospects that a coronavirus vaccine may be distributed soon and hopes that OPEC+ will continue to restrain oil output.
Oxford and AstraZeneca announced that trials showed its vaccine is on average 70% effective in preventing the virus and on Friday, Pfizer/BioNTech applied for an emergency use authorization from the US FDA.
At the same time, Moncef Slaoui, head of the American government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine acceleration program, said on Sunday that vaccinations will “hopefully” start as soon as December 11th or 12th.
KMeanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group claimed in a statement to have fired a missile that struck a distribution station operated by the Saudi Aramco oil company in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea city of Jeddah.
There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of the claim made by the group’s military spokesman.
