Benchmark oil prices took a nose dive today, with both WTI and Brent shedding their recent gains. Prompt-month WTI dipped into $75 per barrel territory on a combination of weak economic outlooks and supply/demand fundamentals. The other big news impacting WTI was Saudi Aramco’s price cut to the crude oil grades it exports into the… Keep reading →
Hedge funds are pulling out of bets that crude oil prices will rise in the short to medium term. With the market currently well supplied, investors are increasingly taking futures and options positions that could be profitable if oil prices decline further. “Money managers cut net-long positions, or wagers on rising prices, for benchmark West… Keep reading →
The global oil market is a strange place indeed and the surge in US crude production coupled with outdated regulations are creating counterintuitive trade dynamics. A majority of US crude imports come from Canada – 2.5 million barrels per day in September according to EIA data – but now the US also exports more crude… Keep reading →
BP and the US federal government are at odds over how much oil was actually spilled into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010: BP says 2.45 million barrels, the US government says 4.2 MM bbl. “Clean Water Act fines…range from a maximum of $1,100 for every barrel… Keep reading →
