Crude Oil Prices – Weekly Recap 27 February – 2 March

Crude oil prices changed direction and slightly declined during last week after they had risen during most of February.  There are still concerns regarding the tensions between Iran and the West but since there wasn’t any movement on this front, oil prices remained high. The positive news of the 3% growth of the U.S GDP during he last quarter of 2011 along with Bernanke’s testimony may have also contributed to oil price to remain high.  During last week, WTI oil price declined by 2.55% and Brent oil by 1.78%; as a result, the difference between Brent and WTI reached $17.69/b on Friday. 

Here is a short recap for the changes in crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI) between February 27th and March 2nd and a summary of the last EIA oil stockpiles update:

Crude Oil Price – Highlights

table crude oil prices - 27 February- 2 March 2012WTI oil price (spot) sharply decreased during last week by 2.55%; its weekly average price slipped by 1.08% to $107.54 per barrel, compared with last week’s $106.40 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.51%.

NYMEX Futures Price (April delivery) also decreased by 2.8% during the week, and reached $106.70/b on Friday, March 2nd.

Europe Brent oil price also fell during the week by 1.78%, while the average price increased by 0.3% compared with previous week’s average.

The difference of Brent over WTI spot prices slightly declined during the week; its average premium was $16.83; it finished the week at $17.69.

Crude Oil Charts

In the following charts (referring to the week ending on March 2nd) are the shifts in WTI spot oil, NYMEX Future (Short term delivery) and Europe Brent prices:

The first chart shows 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 - 27 February- 2 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 27 February- 2 March 2012Crude Oil Stockpiles –Highlights:

According to the recent EIA report on the U.S Petroleum market, for the week ending on February 24th, U.S. Petroleum stockpiles slightly increased by 0.5 million barrels and reached 1,755.412 million barrels. The current oil stockpiles are still 22.214 million barrels below oil stockpiles levels recorded during the same week in 2011.

For the complete crude oil stockpiles review see here.

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