Recap: U.S. oil prices fell to fresh multi-month lows on Friday, marking the tenth consecutive session of losses. Increasing global supplies continue to spread fear that fuel demand will suffer, as trade wars between China and the U.S. continue to raise concern over a weakening global economy. December WTI fell as much as 2%, reaching a weekly low of $59.26, the lowest level a spot month contract has traded since February. Brent for January delivery fell equally as much, bottoming the session at $69.13. Friday’s sell-off marked the longest losing streak on record. Gains were pared as traders turned light profits ahead of the weekend. December WTI settled at $60.19 a barrel, down 48 cents, or 0.79%, while Brent for January delivery settled at $70.18 a barrel, down 37 cents, or 0.675%. December RBOB lost 1.4% to $1.521 a gallon, down 5.1% for the week and at its lowest since October 2017. December heating oil settled at $2.173 a gallon, up 0.2% for the session but about flat for the week. It is interesting to note that for the final 30 minutes the heating oil contract detached from the crude oil and gasoline markets and rallied back to unchanged level by the close, and also matched the same settlement price from last Friday. During this mini rally the December heat crack rebounded by 60 cents to the highs of the day. But in post settlement trading, during the remainder of the session, prices quickly fell back to where they were prior to the start of the pre-settlement rally.
Technical Analysis: WTI fell deeper into a bear market, as it broke through and settled below the bottom line of the long standing ascending channel that can be depicted on a weekly spot continuation chart. Coming into this week, we would look for a run at $58.60, the 50% retracement set by the October high of $77.22 and the June 2017 low of $39.99. Below this level, additional support can be found at $57.20. Resistance is set at $61.20 and $63.11.
Fundamental News: Euroilstock reported that European crude oil and product stocks increased by 0.3% in October from the prior month and stood at 1,084.03 million barrels. This was some 0.1% less than the same time a year earlier. While gasoline stocks increased by 1.36 million barrels on the month, middle distillate stocks dropped by 4.65 million barrels from September and stood 3.73 million barrels below year ago levels.
A ministerial committee of some of the OPEC+ oil producers is scheduled to meet on Sunday in Abu Dhabi.
Oil Movements estimates that OPEC oil shipments will rise by 670,000 b/d to 25.79 million b/d in the four weeks ending November 24 versus the period ending October 27th.
Colonial Pipeline announced it was allocating space for Cycle 65 shipments on Line 1, its main gasoline line.
IIR reported it continues to estimate that 1.407 million b/d of U.S. refinery capacity was offline during the week ending November 9th. It estimates that for the week ending November 16th there will be some 486,000 b/d of capacity offline.
The ICE reported Friday afternoon speculators in Brent crude oil for the week ending November 6th reduced their net long position by 47,064 contracts to 260,048 contracts. Speculators in gasoil also reduced their net long positions by 12,071 contracts to 121,187.
Early Market Call – as of 9:14 AM EDT
WTI – Dec $60.77 up 58 cents
RBOB – Dec $1.6415 up 2.01 cents
HO – Dec $2.1516 down 30 points
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