Crude oil prices started the week strong, but by the end of the week as the US stock markets declined – the S&P500 index lost 0.94% of its value during the week – crude oil prices followed and declined as well. The appreciation of the US dollar throughout the week against the Euro and CAD also helped oil prices to drop; the ECB’s decision to keep Euro Area interest rate unchanged helped the Euro to depreciate against the USD; the BOC also kept its overnight rate at 1%; the CAD also depreciated against the USD. The weather disruptions in the US may affect its oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and may have a long term effect on the US’s oil supply; in the mean time the oil stockpiles declined during the week. By the end of the week, Brent oil price slightly fell by 0.93% while WTI spot oil inclined by 1.45%; as a result, the spread between Brent oil and WTI oil reached $25/b on Friday.
Let’s review the changes during last week (September 6th to September 9th) 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 1.45%; its weekly average price slipped by 0.19% as it reached $87.91 per barrel, compared with last week’s $88.07 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.44%.
Brent spot oil price on the other hand declined by 0.93% during the week and the average price fell by 1.01% compared with previous week’s average.
The gap between the Brent and WTI spot prices moderately declined during the week and averaged at $26.43; it finished the week at $25.
Crude oil charts
The following chart shows last week’s trend of (week ending on September 2nd) WTI spot oil price, NYMEX Futures Prices (October delivery) and Europe Brent spot oil price:
In the chart, Brent spot oil and WTI prices started the week rising, but during the second half of the week they have declined.
The second chart shows the daily percent changes (i.e. changes around the trend) of crude oil price (WTI spot oil, WTI future, Brent spot oil):
Brent oil prices started with sharp rises in the first couple of days, but soon changed direction and in the last couple of days of the week declined. WTI spot oil started with a sharp fall on Tuesday, but corrected to a gain the next day; by the end of the week WTI spot oil price also had a downward trend.
Petroleum Stocks –highlights:
According to the recent EIA report of the US oil market, for the week ending on September 2nd, U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks sharply fell by 9.2 million barrels to 1,784.9 million barrels. U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil also sharply fell by 8.8 million barrels to 1,050.0 million barrels.
The chart below shows the petroleum and oil stockpiles levels compared to the WTI crude oil prices during 2010 and 2011.
For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.
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