Oil prices continued to rise higher after U.S. drug regulators gave full approval to Pfizer’s vaccine, prompting investors to expect higher fuel demand following rising vaccination rates in the country.
The Asian trading session saw Brent crude futures rise to $ 69.40 a barrel, while US WTI trades traded higher at $ 66.24 a barrel.
Both benchmarks were up more than 5% on Monday driven by the weakness of the US dollar, after posting their biggest losses in more than 9 months last week.
Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine became the first to receive full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday, for use in citizens 16 years of age and older.
This full approval will hopefully increase public confidence to be vaccinated as it meets high standards of safety, efficacy and manufacturing quality, thus increasing vaccination rates in the US.
Also supporting the price increase is strong expectations that U.S. crude oil and gasoline inventories will show a decline last week, while distillery stocks are expected to increase, according to preliminary estimates ahead of today’s industry data.
