WTI recovers towards $ 61.50

• WTI has continued its intraday rally and is now trading at the mid $ 61.50.
• Several institutions reiterated their bullish forecasts for crude oil, which helped calm nerves after Thursday’s strong sell-off.

Crude Oil Markets continue to rebound one after heavy losses on Thursday; The futures contract from the previous month for West Texas Intermediary (WTI), the US benchmark for light sweet crude, is currently trading at session highs at $ 61.50, a decent intraday recovery from lows near $ 59.00. WTI still has a way to go to recoup the losses suffered on Thursday, when it fell from levels above $ 64.50. On the day, it appears that WTI will close the session with gains of around $ 1.50 or up about 2.5%.

Performance of the day

Tranquility appears to be prevailing in crude oil markets this morning after heavy losses on Thursday. In fact, what helped the market to stabilize has been reassuring comments from the main investment banks that still favor the rise in crude prices in the coming months; Goldman Sachs is still calling for WTI to hit $ 80 in the summer and UBS forecasts that Brent will hit $ 75 in the second half of the year (Brent is trading below $ 64.50 this morning).

But the drivers of this week’s slide should not be easily discounted and may continue to weigh on crude oil for weeks to come, or at least slow down any recovery. First, news about the pandemic in Europe continues to worsen as 1) the EU is embroiled in a third wave of the virus that is prompting more countries to tighten restrictions (France is the latest to announce new restrictions), 2 ) The EU continues to spoil the vaccine launch and eventually 3) the much more efficient / faster vaccine launch in the UK appears to be facing some difficulties in April, with fewer doses expected to be delivered than in March in middle of supply chain problems. The UK government says the slower pace of vaccine deliveries in April does not affect the roadmap towards reopening, but new lockdowns on the continent will certainly affect crude oil demand there.

Meanwhile, other bearish crude oil developments this week include a weekly bearish update of the US crude oil inventory (many analysts see more inventory buildup in the future given that the front end of the oil futures curve crude has recently entered contango) and much press attention on increasing Iranian crude exports to China; Unofficial Chinese imports of Iranian crude surpassed 300 million tons per month in early 2021 and Indian refiners are adding Iran to their annual import plans amid expectations that the United States will ease sanctions on US exports. country.

Technical Levels