Oil Price - Jan 29

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Opening prices:
WTI is up 18c to $53.66/Bbl, and Brent is up 42c to $59.93/Bbl.
Natural gas is down 3.8c to $1.896/MMBtu.

Oil prices were up nearly 2% this morning, before giving back the gains, after reported attacks in Saudi Arabia by Houthi rebels
Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi’s have targeted facilities in Jizan, Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea (Reuters)
A military spokesman told Al Masirah TV that the group had also targeted the Abha and Jizan airports, Khamis Mushait military base and other sensitive targets in Saudi Arabia
AEGIS notes that so far no news of supply disruptions have been reported

The number of coronavirus infections in China has overtaken the official number recorded during the 2003 SARS epidemic (Bloomberg)
Airlines across the world have suspended more flights to China as governments try and stop the spread of the virus
China’s oil throughput in February and March have been revised down by 600 MBbl/d – 1 MMBbl/d respectively by industry experts and market analysts (Platts)
When the viral epidemic peaks, China’s product demand is forecasted to fall by 540 MBbl/d in that quarter, according to a Beijing-based analyst
The product demand loss could be translated to 770 MBbl/d of crude throughput, according to the analyst

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EIA reported a build of 3548 MBbls in U.S. crude-oil inventories for the week ending 1/24/2020. This was larger than the average estimate of 258 MBbls as reported by Bloomberg.

Prices were down five minutes following the announcement, to $52.96, from $53.14 just before 9:30am.