2023-06-16 22:29:53
Traders were encouraged by signs of an improving demand outlook, with crude oil futures closing at their highest point in more than a week on Friday, posting their biggest weekly gain since April.
energy commodity prices
- West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for July delivery rose $1.16, or 1.6%, to $71.78 a barrel, with front-month WTI futures ending the week up 2.3%.
- delivered in augustBrent Crude (Brent) futures rose 94 cents, or 1.2%, to $76.61 a barrel, ending the week up 2.4%.
Brent and WTI Crude OilFutures both settled at their highest since June 7 and notched their biggest weekly gain since the week ended April 6.
- Gasoline futures for July delivery rose 1.5% to settle at $2.68 a gallon, and ended the week up 3.4%.
- Delivered in JulyHot Fuel FuturesPrices rose 2.9 percent to $2.55 a gallon, for an 8.1 percent gain for the week.
- Natural gas futures for July delivery rose 3.9% to settle at $2.63 per million Btu, closing the week up nearly 17%.
market drivers
Crude oil finally ended the week higher after gaining on Friday after two consecutive weekly losses. Crude oil prices found support on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese authorities were preparing to implement aggressive economic stimulus measures.
China is the world’s second largest oil consumer. Disappointment over China’s economic rebound has been weighing on crude oil prices through 2023, but that’s not the only factor driving lower prices this year.
“There are a number of key factors behind the decline in oil prices so far this year: a weaker-than-expected rebound in Chinese demand, stronger-than-expected supply from Russia, rising U.S. crude inventories and heightened demand concerns – especially in the Western Hemisphere,” said Matt Smith, chief oil analyst for the Americas at Kpler.
“In view of this, OPEC+ (especially Saudi Arabia) is worried about the market conditions for the rest of the year, so it announced a production cut in early April, and then in June, Saudi Arabia unexpectedly announced an additional production cut of 1 million barrels per day starting in July. to prevent oil prices from falling below $70 a barrel,” he said.
Data from Baker Hughes on Friday suggested that U.S. production may be falling. According to the data, the number of active oil rigs in the United States fell by 4 this week to 552.
Meanwhile, media sources this week have speculated that the United States and Iran are close to reaching an interim nuclear deal.
Analysts said that the full resumption of Iranian oil production would have a major impact on global markets, but many still expected that the United States would not reach an agreement with Iran to ease Iran’s oil sanctions.
In natural gas, front-month futures rose to their highest level since March 7 on Friday. Natural gas also closed sharply higher on Thursday, as the EIA announced that US natural gas inventories increased by 84 billion cubic feet last week (6/9), which was lower than expected.
Victoria Dircksen, a commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, reported that the weather forecast released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the next 8 to 14 days shows that the temperature in most of the Midwestern and southern parts of the United States will be above average, which means The cooling demand for power generation in the second half of June may increase.
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