During the passing week, crude oil price experienced an upward trend while natural gas spot price didn’t show any clear trend however did manage to fall by the end of the week compare to the beginning. I will present the main figures related to the energy market in this weekly recap analysis for the week of January 10-14:
Crude oil price
* This figure is calculated based on the percent change from the price at the beginning of the week compare to the price at the end of the week
Crude oil price after showing a downward trend in the previous week, presented in this passing week an upward trend.
The table above shows the changes in crude oil price: the WTI crude oil price ranged between 89.24 $/b and 91.86 $/b – a range of 2.62$/b, which is lower than last week’s range. This fluctuation represents a decrease in crude oil price volatility compare to last week.
Crude oil price (WTI) weekly average was higher this week by 1.7% compare to last week’s average price. On average, crude oil price (WTI) daily change was 0.78%, and its price increased by 2.58% from beginning to end of the week.
Europe Brent spot price showed an upward trend as it inclined by 3.22% from beginning to end of the week; the average weekly of Brent price was 2.3% higher compare to last week’s average.
Crude oil Stocks for the passing week –highlights:
According to the recent EIA report, petroleum stocks, after falling consecutively for the past several weeks, last week it showed a moderate rise. For the week of January 7th the stocks rose by 0.1%, an increase of nearly 0.94 million barrels of crude oil. This break in the stocks decline is despite the rise in demand for energy throughout the U.S mainly for heating purposes.
The main reason for this rise was related to the increase in Stocks of Total Gasoline, which inclined by 2.3%, a 5 million barrels rise, and reaching 223.2 million barrels.
Natural gas price
As a result of the increase in the demand for natural gas due to the cold weather, the Nymex Henry Hub Future Price weekly rose by 1.82% from beginning to end of the week; however, its average price was 1.5% lower than last week’s average prices.
In regards to natural gas spot price the picture is a bit more complex:
For the NY gate natural gas spot price this passing week’s average price rose by 56.7% compare to last week’s average price. This is mainly due to the snowfall in the Northeast of the U.S. including New York; the cold weather caused a hike in demand and consequentially in NY gate natural gas spot price , which rose up to Wednesday and as the demand subsided, NY city gate fell dramatically by the end of the week.
As a result NY gate natural gas spot price fell by 4.3% from beginning to the end of the week, however did get as high as 11.23$/mmbtu, more than double the price at the beginning of the month.
As for Henry Hub natural gas spot price, there was no apparent trend this week for this commodity price, but it did decline by 1.3%, and its average price fell by 1% compare to last week’s average price.
* This figure is calculated based on the percent change from the price at the beginning of the week compare to the price at the end of the week
Natural gas Storage for the passing week –highlights:
The EIA issued its weekly report on natural gas; in my last review about U.S. Natural gas storage, there was a drop of 4.2% in natural gas underground storage (Billion Cubic Feet); in the recent published figures for the week of 7th of January there was a similar decline of 4.5%, which is a decline of over 138 Billion cubic feet.
According to this report, the natural gas storage reached a total of 2,959 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states, which is 5.8% above the five year average (2006-2010), and higher by 107 billion cubic feet for a similar time in 2010.
Oil and Natural gas Charts
The following charts show the changes of WTI spot price and Europe Brent spot price:
The final graph shows the crude oil price and natural gas future prices (Nymex Henry Hub Future Prices) daily percent change ranging between 2.1 percent incline for WTI crude oil price at the beginning of the week, and a 2.9 percent decline at the middle of the week for Nymex Henry Hub Future Prices.
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