WTI declines returning from near highs at $ 65.00 as US crude production surges again

  • The WTI has been oscillating in recent trade, almost reaching $ 65.00, but has recently dropped back to $ 63.50.
  • Sales have rebounded in the wake of the latest EIA inventory report which showed US production levels rising again.

Crude oil prices They have skyrocketed in the last few hours and have recently traded in bearish numbers again. Previous month’s futures contracts for West Texas Intermediary (WTI), the US benchmark for light sweet crude, capped before $ 65.00, hit session highs near the $ 65.00 level not long ago, but since then they have been sold and fell below $ 63.50, where WTI is trading at a loss of about 0.75% or 50 cents on the day. WTI is now considering a back move and a test of the session lows previously touched just above $ 63.00.

Performance of the day

The last part of the sessions on Monday and Tuesday was quite unpleasant for the crude oil complex; Prices were under pressure amid a combination of profit-taking with cycle-high crude oil prices, concerns about increased oil production / refinery activity in Texas (as the region continues to recover from oil-related disruptions). February cold weather) and “bearish” oil demand growth forecast in the US Energy Information Agency yesterday, which released its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook report and slashed growth forecasts of oil demand by 2021 (although it increased by 2022).

As for the Wednesday session; With the US dollar under pressure in recent hours (particularly from lower-than-expected US inflation figures), the WTI had been making a modest recovery. Prices plummeted due to a mistranslation of a news cable that suggested Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak had signaled that Russia would increase crude production by 890,000 barrels a day in May. This sparked fears that Russia was about to withdraw from the OPEC + deal. However, a correction on the news cable soon revealed that Novak had been referring to the increased production in May 2021 compared to the previous year. Within a few minutes, the whole move, which had seen crude oil fall from above $ 64.50 to $ 63.50, was reversed.

However, crude oil prices have been down since then and it appears that the latest official weekly crude oil inventory report from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) is not helping; As Tuesday’s API inventory report indicates, there was a large increase in stocks of general crude oil (of 13,798 million barrels), while there was a large drop in gasoline (of 11,869 million barrels) and distillates (of 5.5 million barrels). This is all due to disruptions in refinery activity in the US after the “deep freeze” in the last weeks of February. However, the most important aspect of the report, and probably what has been weighing on the crude oil markets, is the fact that US production increased by 900,000 barrels per day to 10.9 million barrels per day.

Technical Levels

.

You may also like