Jet fuel market’s key metric rises as flights resist Omicron

Bloomberg

The jet fuel market is soaring in Europe as global air traffic withstands the impact of the Omicron virus strain.
One of the fuel’s most important market metrics, its differential to diesel, on Friday surged to its highest since September 2019 — long before Covid-19 decimated the continent’s aviation industry.
“We’re tight supply everywhere,” said Mark Williams, an oil products markets and refining analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. For Europe, “everyone was expecting demand to take a hit because of Omicron. That hasn’t emerged — so jet demand has stayed pretty healthy.”
While flights are still way down on 2019 levels, they’re only slightly below where they were in November, according to data from FlightRadar24, which tracks commercial flights. That’s in stark contrast to the plunge in global air traffic and jet fuel demand in the spring of 2020.