Less chance for peace talk so far!
After six days falling in raw, Oil was up on Thursday and continued the uptrend so far on Friday, ignoring both EIA and API reports.
Yesterday oil started the day at $94.80 and ended at 102.12 US Dollars with a 7.8% daily gain. Oil can end this week higher if we will not get more positive news from the Ukraine conflict with Russia. With the current prices, both Brent and WTI futures are set to end the week down about 4%, after testing 14-year highs hit nearly two weeks ago.
Latest reports show less chance of progress in ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia, which ended with some more sanctions by Japan and Australia, that can continue disruption to oil supply.
Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin warned "traitors and scum". He believes that they are helping the western powers to put more pressure on their own country and should be spat out like gnats. The day before that, US President Joe Biden called Putin a "war criminal" and Russia called it nasty and harsh. While these reports used to increase the tensions, today another news about a phone call between Putin and Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about the stages of the ceasefire and Russia's conditions for it, calmed the markets, and hopes came back. After this report, WTI eased about 2.8% from its daily peak (104.82) to test the $101.93.
While global sanctions on Russia, alongside stalled talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran increasing the Oil prise, reducing the worries about the latest COVID-19 outbreak in China also helped the bulls. On the other hand, FED and the next day, the BoE decisions helped the stock markets in both sides of the Pacific to increase and lift the demand for energy, which is positive for the Oil and Gas market.
We should not forget about API and EIA reports earlier this week on Tuesday and Wednesday as well. Both used to help the bears in their downtrend last week and earlier this week, however with increasing the tensions, market participants ignored the reports. According to these reports, US crude oil inventories increased by 3.754M and 4.345M barrels during the week ended on Friday, March 11, respectively in API and EIA reports.
From the technical point of view, as we can see in the bellow Daily chart, oil has very strong support around $92 and as long as it is there, bulls will be in the game. The trend line also is breached at the same mentioned level to start a new uptrend. However, we have another strong level as well on $102, which is the key resistance and has been breached earlier today. Closing the week above this price technically can put the higher prices in the spotlight for the following week.
