Oil: а review of the market situation

Futures for Brent crude fell significantly today, dropping at the same time below $ 57, which is associated with the growth of the US currency. Meanwhile, the price of WTI crude oil fell by more than 1%, as market participants await fresh data on oil reserves.

The American Petroleum Institute plans to publish its report on stocks today, while government data will be presented on Wednesday (experts expect that oil reserves for the week ending March 6, rose by 4.2 million barrels)..

"Crude oil inventories in the United States certainly increased over the past week, we still just do not know how - said the expert Energy Analytics Group Tom Finlon. - The US dollar strengthened, and against this background it is difficult to play on the rising cost of oil. "

Effect on the price of oil also have concerns its excess in the market. According to analysts Energy Aspects, refinery production facilities around the world in April nearer to a peak of 5.7 million barrels per day.

"The problem of excess supply will not go away - said a senior analyst at CMC Markets Plc in London Michael Hewson. - Crude oil inventories continue to grow, although the fall in oil prices has stopped. It will be interesting to see whether the US will cut production when the storage capacity will be exhausted. "

Meanwhile, investors have paid attention to the report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which showed that the net increase in production of shale oil in the US in April 2015 may be compared with March only 1 thousand. Barrels per day. This is the lowest rate since 2011. Under the net production growth EIA understands production growth due to the introduction of new wells in the oil section of net production, due to the drop-down production of existing wells.

A sharp decline in oil prices also contributed to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China on the reduction of import commodities. In particular, because of the long New Year holidays imports of oil, iron ore, copper, and aluminum and steel fell in February to 20.5% in annual terms. Analysts had expected the index to reduce by 10%. A faster rate in February was down oil imports, which amounted to 25.55 million tons, which is 8.7% less than in January.

April futures price for US light crude oil WTI (Light Sweet Crude Oil) dropped to 48.53 dollars per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

April futures price for North Sea Brent crude oil mix fell $ 1.80 to 56.66 dollars a barrel on the London Stock Exchange ICE Futures Europe.