Even though oil had been taking a beating over the last 2 trading sessions, its price rose to $69 per barrel on Friday. However, oil prices are experiencing the worst week of 2019 mainly due to potential economic slowdown and ever-growing oil inventories. US oil inventories have not been this high since July of 2017. And to top it all off, the trade war between the US and China is growing wearier every day further affecting oil prices.
Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at TF Global Markets, stated, “Clearly, bargain hunters are back in town.” He later added, “However, it is still set to record the worst week of the year and this is due to the increase in trade war tensions between the U.S. and China.”
Global Scale
The global benchmark for oil, Brent Crude, has experienced a decrease of 5 percent this week. However, Brent Crude this morning climbed $0.98 to value each barrel at $68.74. Due to US sanctions and voluntary supply cuts, a floor under prices held. Market analysts are expecting the oil market to recover off of the price floor.
“It is reasonable to doubt whether Saudi Arabia will be willing to step up its output given the latest decline in prices, […] we therefore expect to see higher oil prices again in the near future,” Explain analysts at Commerzbank.
In order to make the market tighter, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has been cutting oil supplies since the beginning of the year.
Brent Crude’s prices reflect that the supply and demand of oil is tightly knit. According to UBS, Brent Crude should get back to $75 this month as supply gets tighter and tighter.
“Compliance of OPEC and its allies to the production cut deal remains high, while production from Iran and Venezuela is likely to again trend lower this month,” explains analyst Giovanni Staunovo,
