Yemen's Houthi armed groups claim to have attacked US freighters, Ukraine attacked Russian gas giants, compounded by extremely short cold weather, which continues to hinder US crude oil production. Concerns about global energy supply have intensified, contributing to the rise in fuel prices.

On Monday, WTI crude oil rose more than 2.0% during the day, briefly rising above the $75 mark. Brent crude oil fell slightly after breaking through the $80 mark, and finally closed up 1.7% to $79.89 per barrel.

On the same day, the Houthis in Yemen claimed to have launched a missile attack on an American freighter in the Gulf of Aden. According to CCTV news, on the 22nd local time, Yemeni Houthi spokesman Yahya Sareya issued a statement saying that they attacked an American freighter “OCEAN JAZZ” (OCEAN JAZZ) in the Gulf of Aden with a missile.

However, after that, the US Fifth Fleet clarified that reports that “Yemen's Houthis successfully attacked the American freighter Ocean Jazz” were untrue.

Meanwhile, news broke that Russian gas giant Novatek had been attacked by Ukrainian drones.

According to Global Network, a fire broke out at a Russian energy facility on the Baltic Sea coast on January 21, and operations were affected. This energy facility is located at the port of Ustyluga in the Leningrad region, about 170 km from St. Petersburg, and is operated by Novatek, one of Russia's largest gas companies. This energy facility processes natural gas condensate into aviation fuel and other products, and is also an important Russian energy export facility. This facility has been suspended.

Also, according to the latest announcement from the North Dakota Pipeline Administration, the third-largest oil producer in the US, more than 20% of North Dakota's production was still closed on Monday after production was halved last week due to extreme cold weather and operational challenges.

North Dakota's oil production is expected to drop 250,000 to 300,000 b/d due to cold weather, and gas production is expected to drop 65-80 million cubic feet/day, the state pipeline administration said.

In response, John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC, said, “The market is finally starting to worry about real supply disruptions.”

Price Future Group analyst Phil Flynn said that severe cold weather across the US not only limited crude oil production in North Dakota, but also hindered production in other states.

Recently, the conflict in the Middle East was compounded by the Russian-Ukrainian situation, offsetting the market's expectations of sufficient or even excessive oil supply. Under mutual restraint by the two forces, oil prices showed a trend of rising and falling week by week.

During the Davos Forum last week, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth said bluntly that in his opinion, the current situation in the Red Sea is very bad. This tense situation may cause the Middle East oil supply to be cut off. If this actually happens, international oil prices may rise rapidly and have a series of negative effects on the global economy. Considering the geographical risk, he was very surprised that the WTI crude oil futures contract could still operate below $73 per barrel.

Buffett's heavy Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub recently said that since crude oil exploration activities will lag behind demand growth, the world will experience a shortage of crude oil supply starting in 2025. For most of the second half of the 20th century, oil companies discovered crude oil reserves that were about 5 times the amount of global demand, but in recent decades, this ratio has declined drastically, and is currently around 25%.

Editor/Somer