Crude oil prices didn’t move much on a weekly scale; however it was noteworthy to see how Brent oil price declined throughout most of the week while WTI oil price edged up. Even the WTI oil future price (May delivery) increased on a weekly scale.
This means the Brent Premium declined again and reached the lowest levels in over two months. The modest rise in the WTI oil price was consistent with the slight gain in the U.S stock market during the week. The recent OPEC and IEA reports may have helped eased many oil traders’ concerns and assured the fundamentals are still solid for the oil market so that Brent oil should continue to come down.
During last week, WTI oil price edged up by 0.21% while Brent oil declined by 2.52%; as a result, the difference between Brent and WTI reached $15.47/b on Friday.
Here is a short recap for the developments in crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI) between April 16th and April 20th and a summary of the recent EIA weekly crude oil stockpiles report:
Crude Oil Price – Highlights
WTI oil price (spot) edged up during last week by 0.21%; its weekly average price rose by 0.48% to $103.02 per barrel, compared with last week’s $102.53 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was 0.05%.
NYMEX Futures Price (May delivery) also increased by 1.02% during the week, and reached $103.88/b on Friday, April 20th.
Europe Brent oil price on the other hand declined during the week by 2.52%, and the average price also decreased by 2.44% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference between Brent and WTI spot prices sharply decreased during the week; its average premium was $15.24; it finished the week at $15.47.
Crude Oil Charts
In the following charts (referring to the week ending on April 20th) are the daily changes in WTI spot oil, NYMEX Future (May delivery) and Brent oil price:
The first chart shows the changes of WTI and Brent oil prices during last week: Brent oil price has started off the week declining but by the end of the week edged up.
The 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 Stockpiles –Highlights:
According to the recent EIA report on the U.S Petroleum market, for the week ending on April 13th, U.S. Petroleum stockpiles decreased by 2.2 million barrels and reached 1,763.629 million barrels.
The complete crude oil stockpiles review from April 19th.
For further reading: