Oil prices rallied one week ahead of a meeting by Opec members and after Saudi Arabia's energy ministry confirmed an attack on a petroleum distribution terminal located north of the coastal city of Jeddah.
Brent, the international benchmark for crude, rose 3.4 per cent to $47.73 per barrel at 7.33pm UAE time. West Texas Intermediate, the key gauge for US oil, jumped 4 per cent to $44.87 per barrel.
A spokesman at Saudi Arabia's ministry of energy said "an explosion took place as a result of a terrorist attack by a projectile, causing a fire in a fuel tank at the petroleum products distribution terminal, in the north of Jeddah," at 3.50am local time yesterday.
One of 13 tanks at the product storage facility has been damaged, a Saudi Aramco spokesman confirmed to The National. The unit distributes 120,000 barrels per day of products domestically.
Fire fighting teams extinguished the flames and there were no casualties, the spokesman said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency. Saudi Aramco's fuel supplies to its customers were not affected, the spokesman, said.
Oil producers' group Opec described the attack on the terminal as "a cowardly act against a key installation that helps distribute vital energy needs" in a statement on Tuesday evening.
“Acts of sabotage such as this are detrimental to energy supply security for both producers and consumers and can lead to much uncertainty and volatility. We were extremely pleased to hear that firefighters were able to extinguish the fire quickly and there were no reports of injuries or casualties," said Opec secretary general Mohammad Barkindo.
Oil markets have rallied on the beginning of an orderly presidential transition of power in Washington and positive developments in vaccine trials, which show high efficacy rates against the coronavirus.
AstraZeneca became the third pharmaceuticals company to announce a high degree of its vaccine's efficacy according to trials it conducted. The drugmaker said its vaccine was 70 per cent effective against the coronavirus, with no safety concerns. Previously, both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna had reported 95 per cent efficacy rates in their vaccine trials.
Brent crude is up 24 per cent since the beginning of the month and WTI has gained 25 per cent.
"Oil is on an absolute ripper with WTI slicing through long-standing stop-loss orders like a hot knife through butter as we take out some pretty big pre-second wave Covid-19 oil price levels," said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at Axi.
Oil markets also factored in continued support from Opec+, the alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, which has been undertaking market corrections. The group, which convenes for its annual meeting on December 1, is expected to maintain its current level of production curbs for another three months.
The bloc agreed to a historic output drawback at 9.7 million bpd at the height of the Covid-19-induced demand crunch. It has since tapered restrictions.
Opec+ is currently cutting 7m bpd from markets and was initially set to further taper cuts at its annual meeting. However, lockdowns in various parts of the world and a rising number of Covid-19 cases globally may extend the current level of cuts until the end of the first quarter of 2021.
Still, Mr Innes said the bloc "is in a pretty good place right now and only have to show a unified front on a month to month basis, which should be enough to hold the market in check."
"There are bound to be cries from the producer’s club to start pumping more," he said. "So, the challenge that might be confronting the Opec+ producers is one that is all too familiar with central banks around the world: how to avoid the quota taper tantrum without spooking the market."
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