The barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in February climbed the day before yesterday by 2.84% to 50.25 dollars, a level not reached since March 6, 2020.

Oil prices are thus feeling their wings, in a context marked by favorable advances in the field of the vaccine against Covid-19.

Investors are clinging, indeed, to the hope of a recovery in oil demand aroused by the launch of vaccines against Covid-19. Even if things are still in their infancy, the vaccines in question encourage optimism on the part of oil producers in search of solutions to the vagaries of the markets.

"The optimism on vaccines", which has taken hold of the market for a few weeks, seems to continue, estimated Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, analyst of Rystad, quoted by international media.

The United Kingdom launched its vaccination campaign last Tuesday, a first in a Western country, and investors are now waiting for others to follow suit around the world, in order to end travel restrictions and restart the epidemic. global demand for crude.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a committee of independent experts recommended, the day before yesterday, to the American Medicines Agency (FDA) , to authorize in the United States a first vaccine against Covid-19, developed by the duo Pfizer / BioNTech. The green light is expected to follow in the next few days and vaccination to begin next week.

If vaccines are effective and widely used, this could reinvigorate markets, boost demand for oil and thus send prices back up.

But for the moment, the recovery in demand for crude oil remains in its infancy, as evidenced by the significant increase in crude inventories in the United States last week, while supply is set to increase, in particular from the countries signatories of the agreement between OPEC and its allies.