After hitting a three-week low on Monday, oil prices rose early on Tuesday as the market hopes that still resilient oil demand in the West would offset weakness in its top consumer and top global crude importer, China.

That the oil-producing world is highly reliant on China's appetite is a fact we are reminded of from time to time. Last year, Chinese buyers dragged oil prices out of the doldrums single-handedly as they stocked up on the cheap commodity to fill reserves. Now, this overreliance is backfiring with prices down and likely to stay down because of China. In all fairness, it is not so much China as it is the resurgence of Covid-19 in China that drove prices sharply down at the start of this week. Benchmarks hit the lowest in three weeks because of the movement restrictions that Chinese authorities imposed in response to the latest wave of infections. These included warnings against travel, flight cancellations, and curbs in public transport and taxis.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, is expected to reduce refinery run rates by up to 10 percent at some of its facilities amid renewed travel restrictions in China to fight a COVID wave, a commodity research analyst told Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday.

Saudi Aramco reported a 288-percent increase in net profits for the second quarter of the year, to $25.5 billion, thanks to the rebound in oil prices spurred by growing demand.

Update On The World’s Most Exciting Oil Play: Interview With Scot Evans

Update On The World’s Most Exciting Oil Play

Saudi Aramco plans to have 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) more in oil production capacity by 2025 when the expansion projects on two major oilfields are complete, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant said on Sunday.

U.S., Canadian Rig Count Rise.

Last week, ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) reported Q 2 2021 earnings in one of Big Oil's most anticipated scorecards this earnings season. The United States' largest oil and gas company posted stellar earnings that proved that the worst for the U.S. shale industry might finally be in the rearview mirror. Exxon's Q2 earnings swung to a $4.7B profit from a loss of $1.1B in the year-earlier quarter while revenues more than doubled to $67.7B (+107.7% Y/Y), with both metrics exceeding Wall Street's expectations.

It's not just rising U.S. stockpiles that have thrown the markets off-kilter. News that the COVID-19 Delta variant is running riot in China does not augur well for the global markets.

Traffic congestion in Beijing has declined by 30 percent over the past week, and is falling in other parts of the country as well, as the spread of a new coronavirus variant gains traction, threatening the outlook for oil demand, Bloomberg reports.

As the Delta variant became more prominent in July, initially in India and the U.K. and then gradually across the rest of the globe, many countries were forced back into lockdown or experienced other restrictions to work and movement. This led several experts to speculate that oil and gas demand would inevitably be driven down once again in the face of global restrictions limiting travel and industry. However, as the U.K. reduced all restrictions in mid-July, and several other countries continue to ease lockdowns, this anticipated dip in demand did not hit the industry as hard as expected.