Despite their rebound in recent months, WTI and Brent prices still lost more than 20% in 2020, affected by the drop in demand caused by the coronavirus crisis.

Oil prices rose on Wednesday, benefiting from the weakness of the dollar and hopes of a recovery in demand in 2021, as well as the announcement of a sharper than expected drop in crude inventories in the United States last week. .

US WTI light crude oil prices gained 0.8% to $48.40 a barrel for the January Nymex futures contract, while February-maturity North Sea Brent crude rose 0, 50% at $51.34.

Since the beginning of the year, the price of WTI and Brent have lost more than 20%, however, affected by the drop in demand caused by the coronavirus crisis. Oil markets experienced a particularly volatile year in 2020, which even caused oil futures prices to plunge into negative territory last April, a historic first.

Prices then resumed from May and then in the fall, in the hope of a recovery in demand in 2021, thanks to vaccines against Covid-19. The OPEC+ group of producing countries has also contributed to the recovery in prices, by extending its production restriction agreement intended to reduce market imbalances.

The recent weakness of the dollar, which has fallen to its lowest level in two and a half years against the main world currencies, has also encouraged purchases of raw materials, including oil.

Sharp drop of 6.1 million barrels in US inventories

On Wednesday, oil notably benefited from the announcement of a sharp drop in weekly crude inventories in the United States. For the week ended December 25, crude inventories fell by 6.1 million barrels (against -3.1 million expected) to return to 493.5 mb.

US gasoline reserves also fell, by 1.2 mb, when analysts expected an increase of 400,000 barrels. Stocks of distilled products (fuel oil and heating gas), on the other hand, increased by 3.1 mb, much more than the 600,000 barrels forecast by the market.