WTI Crude Oil
Crude oil price was virtually unmoved today despite a slew of potentially market-moving events.
This afternoon, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly crude oil inventories report. This report showed that oil stocks dropped by 1.6 million barrels for the week ended August 14, versus the consensus figure of a drop of 2.9 million barrels and last week’s 4.5 million barrels shortfall.
The market also did not react to the latest comments by the Saudi Arabian energy minister ahead of the OPEC+ JMMC meeting. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman indicated that a recovery in global oil demand to “97% of the pre-crisis level in the fourth quarter,” was in the offing. However, he did not provide further details as to how he arrived at the optimistic outlook. At the same time, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said that the oil market remained fragile as it continued to face several uncertainties.
Crude oil price on the Brent benchmark was trading at $45.28 as at the time of writing and remains contained within the trading range identified on the daily chart for some time now.
Brent crude oil prices continue to trade within the range that has the 45.39 resistance level as the ceiling, and 44.16 as the floor of the range. With no major changes to crude oil fundamentals, the asset remains range-bound. However, a break of 45.39 allows the asset to target the 48.33 price level, with 50.64 continuing to remain as a potential target further north.
Conversely, a breakdown of 44.16 allows the 41.43 support level to come into view, with 38.56 and 35.61 lining up as potential downside targets if a price decline occurs.
