Oil drops 13% in worst day of 2021, breaks below $70 as new Covid variant sparks global demand concerns

Published

4 years ago

November 27, 2021

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Working oil pumps against a sunset sky.

Imaginima | E+ | Getty Images

Oil prices tumbled to the lowest level in more than two months Friday as the new Covid-19 strain sparked fears about a demand slowdown just as supply increases.

The leg lower came amid a broad sell-off in the market with Dow futures dropping more than 800 points. The World Health Organization warned Thursday of a new Covid variant detected in South Africa. It could potentially be more resistance to vaccines thanks to its mutations, although the WHO said further investigation is needed.

U.S. oil declined 5%, or $4.27, to $74.12 per barrel. International benchmark Brent crude futures slid 5.6% to $77.64 per barrel.

A decrease in travel and potential new lockdowns, both of which could hit demand, come just as supply is about to increase.

“It appears that the discovery a COVID-19 variant in southern Africa is spooking markets across-the-board. Germany is already limiting travel from several nations in the affected region,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital. “The last thing that the oil complex needs is another threat to the air travel recovery,” he added.

On Tuesday the Biden Administration announced plans to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The move is part of a global effort by energy-consuming nations to calm 2021′s rapid rise in fuel prices. India, China, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. will also release some of their reserves.

“This [the sell-off] is attributable to concerns about a sizeable oversupply in early 2022 that is set to be brought about by the upcoming release of strategic oil reserves in the US and other major consumer countries, plus the ongoing steep rise in new coronavirus cases,” noted analysts at Commerzbank. “Furthermore, an even more transmissible variant of the virus has been discovered in South Africa, prompting a noticeable increase in risk aversion on the financial markets today.”

OPEC and its oil-producing allies are set to meet on Dec. 2 to discuss production policy for January and beyond. The group’s slowly eased the historic output cuts it agreed to in April 2020 as the coronavirus sapped demand for petroleum products, restoring 400,000 barrels per day of oil to the market each month.

The group has maintained its gradual taper despite calls from the White House and others to hike output as oil prices surged to multi-year highs. West Texas Intermediate crude futures hit a seven-year high in October, while Brent rose to a three-year high.

U.S. oil is now down more than $10 since its October high of $85.41.

“The coordinated SPR release is getting a second look, as well, especially with OPEC decrying it and asserting that the release will tip the global market back into surplus. The release is much more than just a drop in the bucket,” added Kilduff.

Environment

CNBC Daily Open: The Warner Bros. Discovery deal — a cliffhanger in the making?

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3 hours ago

December 9, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: The Warner Bros. Discovery deal — a cliffhanger in the making?

A view of the water tower at Paramount Studios on Oct. 30, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

Paramount Skydance on Monday launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, following Netflix’s announcement last week that it had reached a deal to buy the HBO owner.

The company is “here to finish what we started,” CEO David Ellison told CNBC, upping the ante with a $30-per-share, all-cash offer compared to Netflix’s $27.75-per-share, cash-and-stock offer for WBD’s streaming and studio assets.

Investors were certainly pleased, sending Paramount shares 9% higher and WBD’s stock up 4.4%.

Another development that traders cheered was U.S. President Donald Trump permitting Nvidia to export its more advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to “approved customers” in China and other countries — so long as some of that money flows back to the U.S. Nvidia shares rose about 2% in extended trading.

Major U.S. indexes, however, fell overnight, as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s final rate-setting meeting of the year on Wednesday stateside. Markets are expecting a nearly 90% chance of a quarter-point cut, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Rate-cut hopes have buoyed stocks. “The market action you’ve seen the last one or two weeks is kind of essentially baking in the very high likelihood of a 25 basis point cut,” said Stephen Kolano, chief investment officer at Integrated Partners.

But that means a potential downside is deeper if things don’t go as expected.

“For some very unlikely reason, if they don’t cut, forget it. I think markets are down 2% to 3%,” Kolano added.

In that case, investors will be waiting, impatiently, for the Fed meeting next year — hoping for a more satisfying conclusion.

What you need to know today

And finally…

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2025.

Kylie Cooper | Reuters

Private credit is beginning to look like the bond market — and that comes with red flags

Once restricted to a niche corner of lending to mid-sized firms, private credit has expanded across sectors, borrower sizes and collateral types, prompting large allocators to treat it increasingly as part of the same opportunity set as high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, said experts.

The blending of the two markets raises worries. With more private lenders chasing fewer blockbuster deals, competition is pushing underwriting standards to look more like the looser norms seen in syndicated markets pre-2020, experts warned.

— Lee Ying Shan

Environment

US solar tops 11.7 GW in a huge Q3 despite political roadblocks

Published

5 hours ago

December 9, 2025

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US solar tops 11.7 GW in a huge Q3 despite political roadblocks

The US solar industry just delivered another huge quarter, installing 11.7 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in Q3 2025. That makes it the third-largest quarter on record and pushes total solar additions this year past 30 GW – despite the Trump administration’s efforts to kneecap clean energy.

According to the new “US Solar Market Insight Q4 2025” report from Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, 85% of all new power added to the grid during the first nine months of the Trump administration came from solar and storage. And here’s the twist: Most of that growth – 73% – happened in red states.

Eight of the top 10 states for new installations fall into that category, including Texas, Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Utah, Kentucky, and Arkansas. Utah jumped into the top 10 this quarter thanks to two big utility-scale projects totaling more than 1 GW.

But the report also flags major uncertainty ahead. Federal actions, including a July memo from the Department of the Interior (DOI), have slowed or stalled the approvals pipeline for utility-scale solar and storage. Without clarity on permitting timelines, Wood Mackenzie’s long-term utility-scale forecast through 2030 remains basically unchanged from last quarter.

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“This record-setting quarter for solar deployment shows that the market is continuing to turn to solar to meet rising demand,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. She added that strong growth in red states underscores how decisively the market is shifting toward clean energy. “But unless this administration reverses course, the future of clean, affordable, and reliable solar and storage will be frozen by uncertainty, and Americans will continue to see their energy bills go up.”

Two new solar module factories opened this year in Louisiana and South Carolina, adding a combined 4.7 GW of capacity. That brings the total new US module manufacturing capacity added in 2025 to 17.7 GW. With a new wafer facility coming online in Michigan in Q3, the US can now produce every major component of the solar module supply chain.

“We expect 250 GW of solar to be installed from 2025 to 2030,” said Michelle Davis, head of solar research at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report. “But the US solar industry has more potential. With rising power demand across the country, solar could do even more if current constraints were eased.”

SEIA also noted that, following an analysis of EIA data, it found that more than 73 GW of solar projects across the US are stuck in permitting limbo and at risk of politically motivated delays or cancellations.

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Environment

It’s happening: Chevy Spark EUV production kicks off in Brazil

Published

8 hours ago

December 9, 2025

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It's happening: Chevy Spark EUV production kicks off in Brazil

Chevy Spark EUV Production Officially Begins In Brazil

The spiritual successor to the beloved Chevy Geo Tracker, production of the new-for-2026 electric Spark EUV has officially begun in Brazil with more than 200 miles of range.

That’s right, kids. To know the Chevy Tracker is to love the Chevy Tracker. The tiny, top-heavy Suzuki-based SUV combined bold colors, fun styling, (relatively) good fuel economy, and real off-road chops (especially in ZR2 trim) with an affordable price tag to make the Tracker an early favorite among the serious rock-crawling crowds.

Like, really

2001 Chevy Tracker; via Harry Situations.

While it’s still too early to tell whether or not the all-new Chevy Spark EUV will come even close to that little proto-SUV, it seems we won’t have to wait much longer to find out – GM Authority reports that production of the 2026 Chevy Spark EUV has officially begun at Comexport’s Planta Automotiva do Ceará (PACE) plant, in the state of Ceará, Brazil.

GM Brazil invested the equivalent of $73 million to get the PACE factory ready to assemble GM’s modern, zero-emissions Chevy crossover for the South American and Middle Eastern markets – an investment big enough to earn a visit from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was on-hand for the December 3rd kickoff event.

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“It’s not a car factory,” said Comexport Vice President and PACE shareholder, Rodrigo Teixeir. “(The) goal is to develop technology there, not simply assemble a vehicle.”

Production of the new Spark EUV began last week, with production of the equally new Chevy Captiva EV set to begin as early as Q1 of 2026.

2026 Chevy Spark EUV

The Made in Brazil Chevrolet Spark EUV is heavily based on the Chinese Baojun, and is powered by that vehicle’s single 75 kW (101 hp), 180 Nm (130 lb-ft) motor driving the front wheels. Power comes from the Baojun’s 42 kWh LFP battery that, with regenerative braking, is good for up to 360 km (220 miles) on the NEDC driving cycle.

Weirdly, the new Spark is also equipped with a 10.1″ infotainment screen and 8.8″ digital instrument cluster (above) that supports both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard – technology that GM claims lead to “unsafe” driver behaviors in North America.

Let us know what you think of the little electric SUV, and whether or not you think it would be a hit in the US (it would) in the comments.

SOURCE: GM Authority; images by GM, Harry Situations.

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