Dominant users of oil have always been airline companies like the United and Delta. However, 80 percent of these airlines were not able to operate smoothly during the COVID pandemic. The temporary closure of going abroad has significantly shortened the airline company's revenue, ending up having to layoff some of their workers. With such an immense cut in consumption of oil across all airlines in the country, oil demand decreased, and oil prices dropped notably in March.
This October, oil price arose remarkably with approximately 40 US dollars per barrel. The reason behind this rebound was that people have already perceived oil in a different way. Not purchasing it for use, but instead, consider it as an investment tool. People assume that in the short-run after a new vaccine was found to cure the COVID-19, the price of oil will rebound back to positive numbers. People who purchased oil are risk-takers and expect great profit in the future. Hence, the more positive people are with future recovery from COVID 19, they are more likely to purchase oil right now, so oil demand increases.
At the same time, the world's largest alliance of crude exporter OPEC+ has decided to reduce their oil supply after a series of meetings addressing their threat under the pressure from the pandemic.
As the supply of oil decreased and the demand for oil increased, the price level increased back only slightly off where price level used to be.