Crude oil prices continue to seek direction as they didn’t do much during most of the week with no clear trend. by the end of the week, Brent oil price added 0.32% to its value, and WTI spot oil inclined by 2.19%, resulting in the spread between Brent oil and WTI oil reaching $20.48/b. The IEA projections for 2011 crude oil demand were updated upwards; OPEC released during last week its monthly report and showed Saudi Arabia raised its quota; China’s GDP growth rate during the second quarter remained high; and the US inflation fell by 0.2% in during June.
Let’s review the changes during last week (July 11th to July 15th) of crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI), and present a summary of the recent EIA petroleum report:
Crude oil prices – highlights
WTI spot oil price inclined during last week by 2.19%; its weekly average price on the other hand fell by 0.42% as it reached $96.71 per barrel, compared with last week’s $97.12 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was 0.23%.
Brent spot oil average price also inclined by 1.73% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference between the Brent and WTI spot prices sharply inclined and averaged at $20.67, and it finished the week at $20.48.
The rising gap between Brent oil and WTI spot oil might suggest that the European oil market is tightening up compared to the U.S. oil market; it also suggest that the recent announcement of the IEA to release crude oil, doesn’t assist much in bringing down the supply-demand friction.
Crude oil charts
The following chart shows last week’s trend of WTI spot oil price, NYMEX Futures Prices (August delivery) and Europe Brent spot oil price:
The chart shows that both Brent spot oil price and WTI spot oil didn’t change much during the week with no clear trend.
The second chart presents the daily percent changes (i.e. changes around the trend) of crude oil price (WTI spot oil, WTI future, Brent spot oil):
In the chart WTI spot oil remained during most of the week near the zero percent change; Brent oil on the other hand was much more volatile as it zigzagged during the week from sharp falls to sharp rises.
Petroleum Stocks –highlights:
In last week’s EIA report of the US petroleum and oil market, the U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks rose last week by 4.314 million barrels. For the week ending on July 8th crude oil stocks reached 1,796 million barrels.
The chart below shows the ongoing recent shift from downward trend to upward trend of WTI spot oil price , as it inclined during the past couple of weeks; petroleum and oil stocks keep their slow climb up.
For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.
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