Weekly Review

Last week saw volatile oil prices and unexpected developments that could have major consequences for the oil industry. The week started on a bearish tone with prices pulling back from weeks of steady increases. As the week wore on several unanticipated oil production outages occurred sending prices higher. At week’s end, however, both US and Brent crude were lower, the first weekly loss after four straight weeks of gains with New York futures at $44.66 a barrel and London at $43.37.

Analysts are starting to wonder as whether 2016 could turn out to be similar to 2015 when oil prices rose sharply in the first five months of the year on hopes that the oil surplus would soon be over, and then collapsed in May when it became apparent that there was going to be more oil around than necessary. Last week the price surge which began in February continued throughThursday and then slowed on Friday leaving London futures at $48.13 at the close and New York at $45.92. The impetus for the surge is that that hedge funds and other speculators are convinced that the two-year price slump is over and that higher prices are ahead. This forecast is supported by the steady decline in the US rig count, which continued last week; a continuing drop in US crude production which the EIA projects will continue into next year; a weaker dollar due to the Federal Reserve’s failure to increase interest rates; increased consumption of gasoline in the US due to low prices; market technical analysis showing prices breaking various “ceilings;” and news of a string of production outages across the globe due to insurgencies and unsettled economic conditions.

Market sentiment has switched to the opinion that prices are not going much lower, despite warnings from Goldman Sachs and other respected observers that there is no fundamental support for higher prices at this time. Last week various pieces of slightly bullish news that are usually are ignored by the markets were enough to move prices higher for the eighth time in the last ten weeks. Crude now is up 67 percent since February, closing on Friday at $43.73 in New York and $45.11 in London.

Oil prices climbed to recent highs early last week on hopes that the Doha meeting would eventually lead to some sort of production cut, a weaker dollar, and scattered production problems. Later in the week prices fell as the US crude glut continued to grow and expectations that something meaningful would come from the Doha meeting subsided. At week’s end, New York oil was at $40.36 and London at $43.10 up 2.8 percent for the week.

Oil prices surged 8 percent last Friday and are now back at levels seen at the top of the last price surge in mid-March. This time strengthening the US and German economies, a falling dollar, and the OPEC price freeze meeting on April 17th was seen as the trigger behind the rally. Friday’s rally was the 12th time in the last two months that daily prices have surged by 5 percent or more showing that there is a lot of money eager to participate in big price rise that will come someday. However, this rally was mostly based on hopes that things are going to get better rather than any specific news, other than the recent increases in US gasoline consumption which are likely to short-lived as retail prices move higher.