Crude Oil Futures

  The next monthly meeting of the OPEC+ on March 4, is going to be crucial for the oil price in particular and the economies of the world regardless of their strength in general. At present, the factors which are always in favour of steady oil price are active: the inventory draws are significant; China has been importing crude oil at an increased pace and so has India; Covid-19 vaccines bring in new hope for controlling the pandemic. In this context, OPEC+ can play the decisive role in the equation of crude oil price very soon. According to Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, the Iraqi oil minister, the OPEC+ will make sure oil supply is steady for the coming months; whether he meant up until next month after March, i.e. April, or beyond that remains to be the collective decision of the cartel. Iraq may agree with the rest of OPEC+ in order to maintain an output cut so that it can boost revenue to shore up its struggling economy; the political unrest is at a critical point in the country, whi

  Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, two countries without an issue of crude oil supply, are in an accelerated mode to embrace renewable energy, something we never heard of, up until recently. According to an article by Rystad Energy on oilprice.com, the UAE hopes to increase the contribution by the renewables to its energy needs to an impressive 21% by 2030; the UAE is rapidly expanding the installation of solar panels in the desert to achieve the targets and unlike in Europe, it’s a reliable renewable source to generate energy most of the year for the region. The article also highlights the impressive fact that in the UAE, the consumers enjoy the lowest electricity tariffs in the world. Having seen the article, I asked a friend of mine, who is on the same wavelength when it comes to the subject, as to why these two nations, with estimated vast oil reserves, embark on a highly ambitious renewable mission: “Because, they will run out of it much earlier than they say it will,” came th

  Oil surge continues as investors feel that the demand is back on track and it’s finally irreversible regardless of the bad news on the Coronavirus front with the discovery of new variants. Investors seem to be particularly buoyed by the projected increase in demand by two leading developing countries in Asia, India and China, as the respective economies show healthy signs of recovery. Although activities in the South China Sea involving the world’s two biggest economies is a concern, the investors know that it will never grow into a mutually-suicidal military confrontation in spite of the spectacle of sabre-rattling. Since the US aircraft carrier was moved away from the Strait of Hormuz recently and Iran’s rhetoric has toned down somewhat, we can sense that the political manoeuvres may be already underway between the long-time enemies; the US move to delist Yemen’s Houthis as a terrorist organisation is also significant in this context. Houthis have been targeting Saudi oil f

I have been looking at many charts that depict the current oil prices and even created one for my own website/blog using the weekly oil price data since 1987, from the EIA, the US Energy Information Administration. Despite all that, sensing the trend, upward or downward, on weekly basis is as ridiculous as betting on the foot that a centipede will put ward in order to shorten its crooked path. I am sure this must be the nightmare of every chartist who lurches on the uncertainty of crude on markets. The crude oil price continued to rise on Monday, following the bullish pattern of the last week, despite the decline in motor traffic on our roads, lack of air travels in the sky and of course, the conflicting signals about the end of the pandemic, shadowing the presence of over 4000 variants of the virus among the human beings. Of course, on one hand, Saudis have cut the output for next two months by 1 million bpd, in addition to the quota agreed upon in January by the members of th