Category: Oil Markets

Oil prices remain at an elevated level, with WTI at $57 and Brent at $65. We have ascribed much of the recent to short-covering and geopolitical tensions in the Arab peninsula. The Saudi Arabia-Iran proxy war is on full display in Yemen.… Read more

Oil prices broke out to the upside, yesterday, confounding those who see record inventories of crude oil and the current rally as incongruent. The Middle East is part of the reason for the rally. Earlier in the week, Saudi Arabia had said it was suspending its bombing campaign in Yemen.… Read more

It’s more of the same with oil prices trading in a fairly narrow range. Once again, a large increase in oil inventories was ignored, and prices fluctuated between positive and negative territory, yesterday. The weekly inventory report did show a large drawdown in gasoline inventories and strong demand by drivers for gasoline and by refiners for crude oil.… Read more

Oil prices continue to churn weighing positive and negative factors. The recent upswing in US refinery demand for crude oil has underpinned prices, along with geopolitical jitters emanating from Iraq and Yemen. While the flow of crude oil in storage in the US continues unabated, despite a rapidly falling rig count.… Read more

Oil prices had a volatile session, yesterday, coming under pressure to start the day on bragging comments from Saudi Arabia’s Al-Naimi about the Kingdom’s 10.3 million bpd production rate, but rallying on the market’s flavor of the month, in terms of data point, Genscape’s peek at Cushing inventories.… Read more

Oil prices are under some pressure this morning, after starting out higher, out of the gate, last evening. The initial rally came courtesy of a move by the Chinese central bank to lower bank reserve rates by a full percentage point.… Read more

Oil prices surged higher, yesterday, breaking through the upper end of the long-running range between $46 and $56 for a time. The stay above $56 was temporary, but prices did finish at $55.39 at the closing bell, giving us a settlement above that critical level.… Read more

Oil prices continue to show strength, despite a fundamental set-up that argues for lower prices, not higher. Prices are higher this morning, for example, despite Chinese GDP of 7% that is the slowest rate of growth since the financial crisis. We detail aspects of the slowing global economy in the Macro section, above.… Read more

Oil prices showed some curious strength, yesterday, with most participants looking for a rationale beyond there being more buyers than sellers. We flagged $52.50 as a key resistance point that, if broken, would induce furious short covering, which it did. There was some strong economic data in the form of the JOLTs report in the US, which showed the highest number of job openings in 14 years, and the dollar has seemingly stopped its advance, even reversing…

WTI prices spiked higher, yesterday, on several positive elements. The Iran nuclear deal is the latest political football, in both the US and Iran, where hardliners in both countries want nothing to do with each other’s country. Oil prices fell ahead of the deal, on hopes that lowered tensions and even more oil would work to lower prices.… Read more