Crude oil prices took a pause from their recent upward trend of the past several weeks and remained nearly unchanged during last week. Further, the gap between Brent and WTI also didn’t change much and slightly dwindled. The recent publication of the minutes of the FOMC that rekindled the expectations of another stimulus plan didn’t seem to affect much the prices of crude oil. The oil stockpiles declined again during last week by 3 M bl. WTI oil edged down by 0.17% during the week; Brent, by 0.54%. As a result, the gap between Brent and WTI reached $19.29/b on Friday.
Here is a short analysis for the price developments in oil (Brent and WTI) between August 20th and August 24th and a summary of the latest EIA report on petroleum and oil stockpiles:
Oil Market – Weekly Summary
WTI oil price (spot) edged down during last week by 0.17%; its weekly average price increased by 1.92% to $96.23 per barrel, compared with last week’s $94.42 per barrel. The average daily percent change of oil price (WTI) was -0.03%.
NYMEX Oil Future (short term delivery) increased by 0.15% during the week, and reached $96.15/b by Friday, August 24th.
Europe Brent oil also decreased during the week by 0.54% but the average price rose by 0.49% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference between Brent and WTI spot nearly didn’t change during the week; the difference ranged between $18 and $19; its average premium reached $19.55; it finished the week at $19.29.
Oil Charts
In the following charts (for the week ending on August 24th) are the daily changes in WTI spot oil, NYMEX Future (short term delivery) and Brent oil:
The first chart shows the developments of WTI and Brent oil during last week: WTI and Brent oil remained flat during most of the week.
In the second chart are the daily percent changes (i.e. shifts around the trend) of oil prices (WTI spot oil, WTI future, Brent spot):
According to the recent EIA report on the American Petroleum and oil market, for the week ending on August 17th, U.S. Petroleum stockpiles fell by 3 million bl and reached 1,792.7 million barrels.
The complete oil stockpiles review from August 23rd.
For further reading: