Oil Prices – Weekly Recap January 21-25

Crude oil price continued to trade up during last week. The U.S stockpiles declined according to the recent EIA report. The difference between Brent and WTI slightly expanded to a range between $16 and $17 during the previous week. Brent rose by 2.41% during the week; WTI oil edged up by 0.33%. As a result, the gap between Brent and WTI reached $17.4/b on Friday.

Here is a short analysis for the rate changes in oil prices (Brent and WTI) between January 21st and January 25th and a summary of the latest EIA review on petroleum and oil stockpiles:

Oil Market – Weekly Summary

table oil prices - January 21-25 2013NYMEX Oil Future (WTI) increased during last week by 0.33%; its weekly average rate also rose by 1.3% to $95.77 per barrel, compared with last week’s $94.54 per barrel. The average daily percent change of oil price (WTI) was 0.07%.

NYMEX Oil Future (short term delivery) reached $95.88/b by Friday, January 25th.

Europe Brent oil also increased during the week by 2.41%, and the average price rose by 1.51% compared with previous week’s average.

The difference between Brent and WTI was at the range between $16 and $17 during the week; its average premium reached $16.43; it finished the week at $17.40.

Oil Charts

In the following charts (for the week ending on January 25th) are the daily developments in NYMEX WTI future (short term delivery) and Brent oil:

The first chart shows the shifts of WTI and Brent oil during last week: WTI oil had a moderate upward trend while Brent oil had a sharper positive slope during the week.

oil WTI BRENT chart - January 21-25 2013In the second chart are the daily percent shifts (i.e. changes around the trend) of oil prices (WTI and Brent):

 

oil chart WTI Brent - percent change January 21-25 2013Oil Stockpiles –Review:

For the week ending on January 18th, U.S. Petroleum and crude oil stockpiles declined by 2.6 million barrels and reached 1,796.5 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are still higher than the quota from year: the current crude oil stockpiles are 53.1 million barrels above oil stockpiles for the parallel week in 2012.

U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil, on the other hand, rose by 2.8 million barrels and reached 1,058.4 million barrels. The U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline declined by 0.74% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 233.2 million barrels.

During recent years the lagged linear correlation between WTI oil price and current oil stockpiles reached -0.201. This mid-weak correlation postulates, assuming all things being equal, the prices of oil may rise during next week.

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