RE:nice to see wti over 60 Oil Rallies as Texas Wintry Weather Seen Curbing Shale Supplies Sharon Cho and Rob Verdonck February 14, 2021, 5:17 pm (Bloomberg) -- Oil hit a fresh 13-month high as cold weather in Texas may see supply curbed from Americas largest shale patch. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures surged as much as 2.2% in early Asian trade, rising above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than a year. Brent crude in London rallied past $63. Traders estimate a few hundred thousand barrels a day of output in Texas may be impacted by well shutdowns, disrupted road transport and power outages, crimping American supplies just as global markets are seen to have rebalanced. The Arctic blast gripping the central U.S. may threaten exports from one of the worlds top producers amid rapidly-normalizing global stockpiles that point to the success OPEC+ has had in draining a surplus left in the wake of the pandemic. American oil demand may also be finally catching up with Asia, where fuel consumption was the first to rebound, with refiners processing the most crude since March in anticipation of a vaccine-driven boost in gasoline use this summer. WTI has surged about 16% since the beginning of this month and Brent posted four straight weeks of gains as more Covid-19 vaccines were approved and rolled out worldwide. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabias efforts to deepen cuts helped shrink inventories in nations such as the U.S. and China amid a recovery in demand. Markets have now balanced, Russia Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on state television, according to the Interfax newswire. The prices that we see today certainly correspond to the situation in the market, he said. The cold snap, the additional Saudi cuts, the fresh U.S. stimulus promise are all helping, said Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights in Singapore. But the single biggest factor -- and one the doubters have probably been missing or disbelieving -- is that Covid on a global level is in a retreat, for more than four weeks n