KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 12): The Bursa Malaysia Energy index was up in Wednesday (Jan 12) morning trade after crude oil prices leapt by nearly 4% overnight.

At 10:15am, the Bursa Malaysia Energy Index — which tracks oil and gas (O&G) counters — had added 10.38 points or 1.43% to 738.73 points.

At the time of writing, five out of six of the sector’s top active counters were in positive territory, namely Sapura Energy Bhd (up 10% to 5.5 sen), SAPNRG-WA (up 16.67% to 3.5 sen), Reservoir Link Energy Bhd (up 4.55% to 57.5 sen), Bumi Armada Bhd (up 2.06% to 49.5 sen) and Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd (up 3.05% to 84.5 sen).

But Barakah Offshore Petroleum Bhd was unchanged at 9.5 sen.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that crude oil prices soared nearly 4% on Tuesday, buoyed by tight supply and expectations that rising Covid-19 cases and the spread of the Omicron variant will not derail global demand recovery.

“Brent crude gained US$2.85 or 3.5% to US$83.72 a barrel, its highest settlement since early November. The global benchmark dropped 1% on Monday.

“US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose US$2.99 or 3.8% to end at US$81.22, also its highest price since mid-November. On Monday, it fell 0.8%,” said Reuters.

Brent crude oil rose by 50% in 2021 and has further rallied in 2022 as demand has recovered to near pre-pandemic levels with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, slowly easing record output cuts made in 2020, according to the newswire.

Recent outages in Libya also supported crude oil prices, and the country’s National Oil Corp said it was suspending exports from the Es Sider terminal.