WTI Crude traded & settled below $50/bbl earlier this week, as prices continued to slide across commodities. Today, however, we saw the trend reversing, with the market up this morning by almost 3%. (Early on, we were up over the 3% mark but gains dropped off slightly after the EIA inventory reports were released this morning.)
After what seems like 76 days, January is finally over.
Prices have been somewhat up and down, but largely range bound over the past several days of trading.
What a wild start to 2020 for the oil markets!
Today, the market surged up to 4% on intraday highs as the Pentagon confirmed that US Airstrikes in Bahgdad killed Iran's top commander, Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was considered to be responsible for the attacks by Iran on the US Embassy earlier this week, and the strikes have been framed as a retaliation for those attacks, as well as a preemptive action to prevent alleged further attacks in the works on US targets in the region.
Markets shot up today after relative calm earlier in the week, on EIA inventory reporting this morning that showed a 4.9mmb drop in Crude, once again far surpassing analyst predictions.
The markets were initially up somewhat today on EIA inventory reporting and projected slowdowns in US Shale production through 2020.
The NYMEX was down across the board today, with Crude settling at $56.35 (from $57.23), ULSD dropping .0288 to settle at $1.9278, and Gas shedding .0484 to close out at $1.6262.
Saturday, ten unmanned drones struck a major Saudi Aramco facility in Saudi Arabia, and immediately took 5.7 million barrels out of the global supply. The Abqaiq plant that was impacted is one of the world's largest processors.