Crude oil prices continue to change very moderately as they did in recent weeks, but there was a rise in oil prices during last week; this rise, might have been affected, in part, by the recent OPEC meeting, in which the members didn’t reach a consensus on the oil production quota.
Let review the changes during last week (June 6th to 10th) 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 2.41%; its weekly average price, on the other hand, decreased by 0.87% as it reached $100.04 per barrel, compared with last week’s $100.92 /b. The average daily percent change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.19%.
Europe Brent spot oil price rose by 2.43% from beginning to end, and its average price increased by 1.4% compared with previous week’s average.
The difference between the Brent and WTI spot prices inclined sharply and averaged at $17.26 as it finished the week at $18.91 – the highest price level since February 21st 2011.
These findings suggest that there might be a tighter oil market in Europe than in U.S. which could interpret the widening of the gap between Brent oil and WTI spot oil.
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 shows the moderate rise of WTI and Brent spot oil prices during most of the week.
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):
This chart shows that WTI oil started off the week with falls built up some momentum and inclined during the rest of the week up to the end of the week when it fell again. Brent oil had a similar path with one exception – it started off the week with a moderate rise
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.
For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.
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