Oil prices started June with little changes – Weekly recap 31 May- 3 June

Crude oil prices started off the last week with falls but afterwards they have remained with little changes during the week. It seems that the financial market is still seeking direction for crude oil prices.  The recent disappointing US labor report, which was published last week, might cause a drop in crude oil prices if the market will use this report as a signal for a slowdown in US’s economy recovery which might affect US’s demand for crude oil.

 

Let review the changes from last week (May 31st to June 3rd) regarding crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI), and a summary of the recent EIA petroleum report:

Crude oil prices – highlights

 

table crude spot oil prices -   31 May- 3 June 2011

WTI spot oil price declined during last week by 2.41%; its weekly average price, on the other hand, increased by 1.37% as it reached $100.91 per barrel, compared with last week’s 99.55$/b. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.08%.

 

NYMEX Futures Price (July delivery) also declined by 2.08% during the week, and reached $100.56/b on Friday, June 3rd.

Europe Brent spot oil price fell by 1.09% from beginning to end, but its average price increased by 2.51% compared with previous week’s average.

 

The difference between the Brent and WTI spot prices didn’t change much during the week and averaged at $15.35 as it finished the week at $15.68.

Crude oil charts

 

The following chart presents last week’s trend of WTI spot oil price, NYMEX Futures Prices (July delivery) and Europe Brent spot oil price:

The chart below shows the moderate fall of WTI and Brent spot oil prices at the beginning of the week; the chart also shows the very moderate change during the remainder of the week for these oil prices.

 

Crude spot oil prices WTI BRENT charts -  31 May- 3 June 2011

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):

 

 

Crude spot oil price chart WTI Brent oil - percent change   31 May- 3 June 2011It shows that NYMEX Futures Prices (short term delivery) sharply by nearly 2.5% at the end of the month, as expected, due to its date of maturity; afterwards all crude oil prices remained near the 0% change mark.

 

Petroleum Stocks –highlights:

In last week’s EIA report about petroleum stocks, consumption and production, U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks inclined during last week by 7.2 million barrels, or by 0.41%. For the week ending on May 27th the oil stocks reached 1,788 million barrels – the highest level since February 11th, 2011.

The chart below shows the petroleum and oil stocks levels compared to the WTI crude oil prices during 2011.

 

Weekly U.S. Ending Stocks of Crude Oil and WTI spot oil price 2011 May 27

For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.

[ratings]

 

For further reading (on this site):

 

Previous issues of weekly report: