Category: Oil Pricing

WTI is in full rally mode. If geopolitics were not enough of a factor, plunging inventories in the US , overall, and Cushing, OK, in particular are doing the trick. The market even experienced a BP-Horizon-like scare last night, when “news” hit that an explosion at an offshore rig occurred and that a large sheen of oil was spotted in the waters nearby.… Read more

The recall movement in Egypt has added about five dollars to the geopolitical premium in oil prices. Given what it took for the people to rise up and try to throw the bums out, it seems a misnomer to refer to it as a coup d’etat.… Read more

The overall rally in crude oil prices has been impressive, in its own right, but the collapse in Brent’s premium to WTI has been spectacular. This morning, it has fallen below $5.00. A lot of people roll their eyes when energy economists and analysts remind everyone that the best cure for high prices is high prices.… Read more

Oil prices are on the rise this morning, despite some soft economic data out of China. The first days of a new quarter often rallies generated by new money going to work in long-only index funds. This phenomenon may be exaggerated this time around, due to some fallow dollars, refugees from bond funds, taking a turn at oil.… Read more

WTI crude oil will finish the first-half of the year about three dollars higher than where it began the year. It did lurch 10 dollars down and promptly reverse about 15 dollars higher, so the three dollar change took a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and, possibly, a career or two.… Read more

Oil prices were volatile, yesterday, they fell in response to the report of Q1 GDP being revised downward to 1.8%, but then rallied on the realization that the report gives the Fed precisely the cover it needs to continue to its bond buying program in unadulterated fashion.… Read more

The China money-market scare weighed on oil prices for a couple of days, but those fears have ebbed and prices have rebounded. Over the past several years, the weather has been extreme. Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy have wreaked havoc, and we recently some of the most violent tornadoes in US history.… Read more

There are more losses for crude oil this morning, even after prices fell the most in one-day since September on Friday. It was a tough several days for the bulls. Commodity markets seem to have lost a pillar of support from the Fed’s possible retrenchment and the near-seizing of China’s money market.… Read more

For all the hoopla enveloping the markets, yesterday, and the excited reportage, WTI finds itself at $95.50. That hardly puts it in swoon territory. The resiliency of crude oil prices continues to be curious on its face. The outsized US inventory level, the swelling production, and the liberation of stranded md-west oil via new pipeline routes and rail delivery has had little effect on the view that the global oil market is or is about to become tight.… Read more

Oil prices did not react very much to the FOMC pronouncement nor the Chairman’s comments, yesterday. Overnight, however, prices tumbled along with everything else. A read on China’s manufacturing worsened; the HSBC flash PMI fell to 48.3 from 49.2 in May.… Read more