2018: The Year Of The Oil Bulls.

Catogory : Market Report

Oil started this year with further price gains despite the quick restart of the Forties pipeline and the equally quick repairs of a pipeline in Libya, where a pipeline blast boosted Brent and WTI in the last days of 2017. Usually, such force majeure events are quick to push prices up and down, but this time, only the push up materialized. Sentiment on the oil market is more bullish than it has been for a long time. But how long will this optimism hold?

Last week, listed five factors to watch this year in oil, among them the OPEC cuts, geopolitical risks, the record-high number of long positions on crude, and of course, U.S. shale.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 settled 5 cents lower at $60.37 a barrel. In early trading WTI hit $60.74, the highest level since June 2015.

Brent crude futures LCOc1, the international benchmark, settled 30 cents, or 0.5 percent lower at $66.57 a barrel. The session high of $67.29 was the highest since May 2015.

The spread between U.S. crude and Brent WTCLc1-LCoc1 hit the narrowest in nearly two weeks.

The 450,000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity Forties pipeline system in the North Sea returned to full operations on Dec. 30 after an unplanned.