Crude Oil Prices – Weekly Recap 12-16 March 2012

Crude oil prices continue to zigzag with no clear trend despite the many news items and developments that have occurred during last week. This includes the FOMC’s confidence in the recent development in the U.S economy, the Philly Fed Index that rose according to the recent survey, and the sharp gain in U.S retails sales. On the other hand according to the recent IEA report the OECD stockpiles are still well below the 5-year average. All these reports didn’t affect much the price of oil. By the end of the week it was reported that U.S and U.K may agree to release some of their emergency reserves to pressure down the high oil prices. If this plan will come into play it may just do that for a short time. During last week, WTI oil price edged down by 0.32% and Brent oil rose by 0.45%; as a result, the difference between Brent and WTI reached $19.34/b on Friday. 

Here is a short recap for the developments in crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI) between March 12th and March 16th and a summary of the last EIA weekly oil stockpiles update:

Crude Oil Price – Highlights

table crude oil prices -  12-16 March  2012WTI oil price (spot) slipped during last week by 0.32%; its weekly average price slipped by 0.17% to $106.31 per barrel, compared with last week’s $106.13 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.06%.

NYMEX Futures Price (April delivery) also decreased by 0.32% during the week, and reached $107.06/b on Friday, March 16th.

Europe Brent oil price on the other hand edged up during the week by 0.45%, and the average price increased by 0.63% compared with previous week’s average.

The difference between Brent and WTI spot prices also rose during the week; its average premium was $19.17; it finished the week at $19.34.

Crude Oil Charts

In the following charts (referring to the week ending on March 16th) are the changes in WTI spot oil, NYMEX Future (Short term delivery) and Europe Brent prices:

The first chart presents the developments of WTI and Brent oil prices during the week: Brent and WTI oil prices didn’t have a clear trend during the week.

Crude oil price WTI BRENT oil chart - 12-16 March 2012The second chart shows the daily percent changes (i.e. changes around the trend) of crude oil prices (WTI spot oil, WTI future, Brent spot oil):

 

Crude oil price chart WTI Brent oil - percent change   12-16 March 2012Crude Oil Stockpiles –Highlights:

According to the recent EIA report on the U.S Petroleum market, for the week ending on March 9th, U.S. Petroleum stockpiles decreased by 4.4 million barrels and reached 1,749.5 million barrels.

The complete crude oil stockpiles review of March 14th.

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