Crude oil prices gained back some of the losses they have endured during the previous week and finished with slight increases during the week ending on August 26th. This rally coincided with the increase in major stock markets indexes including the S&P500 index that rose by 3.15% during last week. The near end of the Libyan civil war didn’t have a substantial affect on the oil market. There are still some concerns in regards to the economic progress in the US and Europe, however the sharp falls in crude oil prices in the week ending on August 19th were less driven by fundamental and more by speculations. Therefore, crude oil prices were likely to regain some of these losses. By the end of the week, Brent oil price inclined by 2.82%, and WTI spot oil rose by 1.13%, resulting in the spread between Brent oil and WTI oil reaching $26.53/b on Friday.
Let’s review the changes during last week (August 22nd to August 26h) 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 moderately inclined during last week by 1.13%; on the other hand, its weekly average price slightly fell by 0.37% as it reached $85.05 per barrel, compared with last week’s $85.36 per barrel. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was 0.73%.
Brent spot oil price also inclined by 2.82% during the week and the average price rose by 0.92% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference between the Brent and WTI spot prices moderately inclined during the week and averaged at $25.50; it finished the week at $26.53.
Crude oil charts
The following chart shows last week’s trend of (week ending on August 26th) WTI spot oil price, NYMEX Futures Prices (September delivery) and Europe Brent spot oil price:
In the chart, Brent spot oil and WTI prices didn’t change much during the week, and had a moderate upward trend.
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):
As seen above, Brent oil price moderately declined at the beginning of the week while WTI spot oil sharply inclined; afterwards both energy prices inclined and then Brent oil continued to rise very moderately, while WTI spot oil nearly didn’t change.
Petroleum Stocks –highlights:
According to the recent EIA report of the US oil market, for the week ending on August 19th, U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil sharply fell by 7 million barrels and reached 1,058 million barrels; U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline on the other hand, inclined by 0.64% compared with last week’s stocks; it reached 211.4 million barrels. U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks nearly didn’t change reached 1,794 million barrels.
The chart below shows the petroleum and oil stockpiles levels compared to the WTI oil prices during 2010-2011.
For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.
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