Tough to keep oil down
Today's WTI crude oil settlement was +0.89, or 1.09%, to $84.65. That's a new seven-year high close.
Later we will get the API weekly inventory report and one of the main topics of interest will be US inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma. The main storage hub is being rapidly drawn down, in part due to the backwardation in the crude curve.
In the bigger picture, I think price action tells the story. When price runs for nine straight weeks, it doesn't often take much to tip the apple cart and yet crude has shown remarkable resilience. Top me, that speaks to real demand.
On the OPEC+ side, I don't think there's any real scope for a change in policy next week. OPEC can easily (and correctly) frame high prices as necessary to incentivize much-needed capex due to the risk that what happened to natural gas happens in crude.
