Crude prices fell sharply last week, trading at 15-month lows, as concerns rose over the health of the banking sector following the collapse earlier this month of California’s Silicon Valley Bank. “Oil prices, which had become caught up in the downward pull of the market turmoil to a considerable extent, were able to recover for a short time, though at $77 Brent still remained 10% cheaper than it was at the start of the year,” said Barbara Lambrecht, commodity analyst at Commerzbank, in a note. “This is attributable on the one hand to the still elevated risk aversion and on the other to the surprisingly high supply.” Lambrecht said any further brightening of sentiment in China’s manufacturing sector could boost economic optimism. On the supply side, traders are focused largely on Russia, she wrote, where the production cut of 500,000 barrels a day that was announced for March is likely to be confirmed by initial data, “though the production level could turn out to be higher than anticipated nonetheless.”