Recap: Oil prices rallied on Monday after the U.S. and Canada reached a preliminary deal to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement eased worries that trade tensions would hamper demand. This comes on the heels of the approaching November 4th date for U.S. sanctions against Iran. Brent rose to a fresh four year high peaking the session at $75.77 a barrel, while WTI traded above $75 a barrel for the first time since June of 2015. December Brent settled at $84.98 a barrel, up $2.05, or 2.72%, while November WTI tacked on $2.05, or 2.80%, to settle at $75.30 a barrel. Both Brent and WTI settled at their highest level in almost four years. November RBOB rose 2% to settle at $2.128 a gallon, while November heating oil gained 2.5% to settle at $2.408 a gallon.
Technical Analysis: WTI traded above $73.96, the 38% retracement of its fall from the 2011 high of $134.12 and the 2016 low of $36.11. With moving average oscillators still trending to the upside, we would look for additional moves higher. Resistance is set at $76.59 and $77.40. Support is set at $73.96 and $72.95.
Fundamental News: Genscape reported Monday morning that it estimated crude oil inventories at Cushing, OK as of Friday, September 28th stood at 27,244,167 barrels up 485,239 barrels from September 25th and up 1,506,205 barrels from a week earlier.
S&P Global Platts reported that stocks of gasoil in Switzerland were falling to unusually low seasonal levels due to the recent low water levels on the Rhine River.
Commerzbank Monday raised up its year end Brent forecast to $85 per barrel.
Genscape reported the Seaway pipeline was shut Monday morning. The line was flowing at near 391,000 b/d and normally has a 400,000 b/d capacity running between Cushing and Freeport, Texas.
U.S. oil refiners are estimated to have 1,360,000 b/d of capacity offline in the week ending October 5th some 131,000 b/d less than a week ago.
On Monday, President Trump announced the United States, Canada and Mexico had reached an agreement on the new United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade pact that would replace the NAFTA trade pact. The new agreement President Trump claimed would support “hundreds of thousands” of U.S. jobs. The markets saw the announcement as taking away from some of the concerns that a trade war was going to impact growth.
Early Market Call – as of 9:05 AM EDT
WTI – Nov $75.44 up 14 cents
RBOB – Nov $2.1270 down 5 points
HO – Nov $2.4063 down 16 points
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