Last Week Data & Oil Market Movers:
- US crude oil production increased by 26,000 bbl/day to reach 9,528,000 million bbl/day
- Reopening of Libya oil fields (Reopening of Libya’s Sharara oilfield)
- US crude oil inventories fell again last week by 3.3 million bbl to 463.2 million bbl
- OPEC decided to invite Libya and Nigeria for the next OPEC/non-OPEC production cut compliance joint monitoring committee
- US gasoline stocks declined last week by 1.2 million bbl
- US oil rig count fell last week by 4 rigs (Overall rig count fell by 6 rigs last week)
- A slide in US dollar as Fed’s Yellen made no monetary policy change
- Hurricane Harvey (oil/gas production shut in GoM and Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas)
This Week Oil Price Forecast:
Looking at last week data and oil market movers, oil price is expected to have a positive week ahead. Support to oil price this week will come from last week’s decline in US oil rig count on Friday, the fall in US crude oil production and gasoline stocks, as well as the slide in the greenback after the Fed’s Yellen made no monetary policy change during last week meeting. But the main support to oil price this week will be coming from the impact of Hurricane Harvey which has led to many operators shutting in their offshore oil and gas production from the GoM and onshore production from Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.
Weekly Oil Price Forecast, Source: Oil Industry Insight
Oil price is expected to go up by 2 percent in the first two days of trading. It is also expected that US crude oil and gasoline stocks will fall again this week and that could boost oil prices further. However, the oil price gains could be limited by the growth in US crude oil production which is expected to increase again this week. The overall outlook for oil price this week is quite positive and we could see oil prices touching new highs this week.
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Remark: The expectation of oil prices’ direction in this commentary are based on the oil market data and news up until the time of writing this commentary. As the week starts, new data and news are reported and could influence oil prices differently. Therefore, the direction of oil prices cloud be different from what was expected here. It is important to stay updated with oil market data and events as they occur.
