The oil market is still hot as oil prices are nearing their record level from 2008, yet this passing week they haven’t done much as oil finished at its initial price level from the beginning of the week.
The turmoil in Libya is still hovering over the oil market as one of the main catalysts for the oil market to reach this high uncertain level (see here for the latest update on this news). During last week Goldman Sachs advised its clients to cash out on major commodities, including crude oil. This might have something to do with the declines in oil prices at the beginning of the week, however by the end oil bounced back.
Here is a recap for the week ending on April 15th on crude oil prices (Brent oil and WTI), and a summary of the recent EIA petroleum report:
Crude oil prices – highlights
Crude WTI oil spot price (weekly average) fell by 1.15% and reached 108.03$/b, compared to last week’s 109.58$/b. The average daily change of crude oil price (WTI) was -0.45%, and its price increased by 0.15% from beginning to end of the week.
Europe Brent spot price declined by 1.9% from beginning to end, and its average price rose by 0.35% compared to previous week’s average.
NYMEX Futures Price (May delivery), much like WTI spot price, declined by 0.24% during the week, and it reached on Friday 109.66$/b.
The difference between the Brent and WTI spot prices was on Friday 14.40$/b, and the average premium rose (compared to the previous week) to 15.43$/b during the week with a standard deviation of 1.03$/b.
Crude oil charts
The following chart preset the trend of WTI spot price, NYMEX Futures Prices (May delivery) and Europe Brent spot price during the preceding week:
It shows that WTI and Brent spot prices didn’t have much of a trend as they fell at the beginning of the week and crawled back up by the end of the week.
The second graph shows the daily percent changes (i.e. changes around the trend) of crude oil price (WTI spot, WTI future, Brent spot):
The graph shows that Brent oil and WTI had moderate changes throughout the week.
Petroleum Stocks –highlights:
In this week’s recent review on EIA report, about petroleum stocks, consumption and production: U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks declined by 4.9 million barrels, which is a 0.28% drop compared to the previous week. The stocks reached by April 8th 1,763.9 million barrels.
The chart below presents the petroleum and oil stocks levels compared to the WTI crude oil prices in 2010-2011.
Crude oil imports declined, during the week of April 8th (4 week average) by 0.3% compared to the week of 1/4/2011, and were below the same time last year’s by 3.4%; this is the first drop in imports since March 4th,
In total, last week there was a rise in US production, and a decline in petroleum stocks, imports and refineries inputs.
For the complete petroleum stocks review see here.
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For further reading (on this site):
Previous issues of weekly report:
- Oil prices finished the week rising – Weekly recap 4-8 April
- Oil prices moderately inclined – Weekly recap 28/3-1/4
- Oil prices started strong & finished weak – Weekly recap 21-25 March