Crude oil prices didn’t do much during last week despite the many news items that were published including the U.S. GDP report for Q4 2011. There are still tensions between the speculation revolving the stability of Euro Area and thus its demand for oil in 2012 and the concerns revolving the recent boycott of Iranian oil by the West. These two forces work in the opposite directions. During last week, WTI oil price rose by 1.12% and Brent oil by 0.99%; as a result, the difference between Brent and WTI reached $11.16/b on Friday.
Here is a short recap for the development of crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI), and a summary of the recent EIA crude oil and petroleum stockpiles report for the week of January 23rd to January 27th:
Crude Oil Price – Highlights
WTI oil price (spot) slightly rose during last week by 1.12%; its weekly average price decreased by 0.46% to $99.31 per barrel, compared with last week’s $99.77 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was 0.22%.
NYMEX Futures Price (February delivery) also slightly rose by 1.25% during the week, and reached $99.56/b on Friday, January 27th
Europe Brent oil price also increased during the week by 0.99% but the average price declined by 0.31% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference of Brent over WTI spot prices didn’t’ change much during the week; its average premium was $10.86; it finished the week at $11.16.
Crude Oil Charts
In the following charts (for the week ending on January 27th) are the changes in WTI spot oil, NYMEX Future (Short term delivery) and Europe Brent prices:
The first chart presents the changes of WTI and Brent oil prices during the week: WTI and Brent oil prices didn’t have a clear trend during the week.
The second chart presents the daily percent changes (i.e. changes around the trend) of crude oil prices (WTI spot oil, WTI future, Brent spot oil):
Crude oil prices started off the week increasing, then on Tuesday they declined and during the rest of the week they have moderately rose.
Crude Oil Stockpiles –Highlights:
According to the last EIA report on the U.S Petroleum market, for the week ending on January 20th, U.S. oil stocks declined by 4.2 million barrels to reach 1,743.4 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are 52.544 million barrels below the oil stockpiles recorded during 2011.
For the complete crude oil stockpiles review see here.
For further reading: