The Midwest diesel market surged Feb. 23 as barrels were routed back into the US Gulf Coast because of numerous refinery outages.

European oil demand markers are showing signs of a gradual recovery, with air traffic and land-based mobility improving amid a marked slowdown in the pace of COVID-19 infections.

The volume of crude oil and condensate in tankers worldwide has fallen to a one-year low as the market's recovery gathers pace, and with a strongly backwardated structure in the Brent crude market discouraging storage.

The Singapore March-April 10 ppm sulfur gasoil timespread has slipped from recent highs as trade sources pointed to the near-term possibility of increased spot availability thanks to a rise in outflows from key supplier China, as well as expectations of higher run rates at regional refineries amid improving margins for the middle distillate.

Trefoil, a marine fuel supplier in Northwest Europe, recently returned to supplying 3.5% sulfur fuel oil of RMG and RMK grades on the back of demand revival post-IMO 2020, the company said in a statement Feb. 24.

The crack spread between Northwest European 0.5%S marine fuel and 3.5%S fuel oil has widened over recent weeks with the former hitting a year high and the latter a nine-month low as market fundamentals diverged.

Colombia's state-controlled Ecopetrol plans to triple its investment in the US' Permian Basin this year to $600 million, in a sign of its increasing focus on foreign projects given stagnant domestic growth.

Recent electricity sector rule changes in Mexico approved by the lower House of Congress will hurt the country's competitiveness while making it harder to meet its international environmental commitments, observers told S&P Global Platts.