Oil price goes down: will the Iranian oil shipment to Lebanon create another crisis?

The price of crude oil was substantially down on Thursday with WTI and Brent hitting as low as 67.27 and 66.11 respectively as of 17:30 GMT. Both benchmarks lost over 3.3% in a day. The outbreaks of the Delta variant of the Coronavirus, coupled with weak economic data from China, have resulted in th…

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Oil Price: the API reports a modest crude inventory draw - slight recovery in the markets

With the news of a modest crude inventory draw, announced by the API, American Petroleum Institute, the price of crude oil recovered slightly from the losses it suffered on Tuesday. As of 09:00 GMT, the price of WTI and Brent stood at $66.89 and $69.43 respectively. The forecast by the analysts for t…

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Falling Oil Price: the key factor is China's economic slowdown

The price of crude oil has been falling with no sign of the trend being reversed, although the rate of fall remains modest. Throughout the past three weeks, analysts were wondering as to why the price of crude oil started falling despite the geopolitical risks that had the potential to disrupt the s…

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Voltatility in the oil markets still persists

Crude oil price behaved like the movements of a ping-pong ball that hit a wooden floor, having fallen from a moderate height, during the past week – and the two weeks before it; there were endless peaks and troughs on the screens of traders and investors that result in nothing, when subjected to co…

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Crude Oil Demand: optimism of the OPEC remains unchanged

Despite the presence of volatility in the crude oil markets, the OPEC is still optimistic about the demand of the commodity during the next few months of this year and for the entire next year. Although the emergence of the Delta variant of the Coronavirus has dealt a critical blow to the recovery o…

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Oil price recovers slightly - very modest rate of rise

The crude oil price that saw a precipitous fall on Monday recovered lost ground somewhat on Tuesday, perhaps owing to the modest inventory draw predicted by the API, American Petroleum Institute, for the week ending August 6. The API said there was a draw of 0.86 million barrels during the period it…

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Oil Price and Selling Strategic Reserves: how strategic is the move?

With the rise of crude oil prices in the past few months, some countries resorting to measures that some analysts thought unthinkable a few years ago; tapping into their respective Strategic Petroleum Reserves, SPR, is one of them. Both Japan and South Korea have been commercialising the SPR recentl…

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Oil Price: the need of the hour is a strong catalyst, not endless data crunching

The price of crude oil fell on Monday and the factors that we thought behind it appear to be at play. In my column on Sunday, I raised the issue of the price of oil on Monday in the current circumstances. As of 11:00 GMT, WTI and Brent recorded steep fall of 4.14% and 3.96% respectively; the price of…

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Oil Price on Monday: will it reflect the steadily rising tension in the Middle East?

Analysts are keen on watching the developments in the crude oil markets on Monday, having witnessed a tumultuous week, where the investor sentiment oscillated between two forms of unpredictability that corresponded with a sharp fall in price, followed by a fragile recovery. On Tuesday, the API, Amer…

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Crude oil markets face a crucial period

The price of crude oil dropped significantly while recording the biggest drop since October last year; it did coincide with the rise in the US inventories for the week ending July 30, by over 3.6 million barrels. There is a combination of factors that clearly has been driving the price of crude oil …

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New Iranian president revives the hopes of restarting the talks on JCPOA

The inauguration of the new Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, ended without the rise of a new controversy amidst heightened tension in the region. The speech delivered by the new president to an audience with significant foreign participation was somewhat conciliatory too. He emphasized his desire t…

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Oil price seasaws and Covid infection rates drive it

It is now explicitly clear that the falling crude oil price is directly related to the spikes in Coronavirus infections across the world, regardless of the region. As of 09:15 GMT, the WTI and Brent stood at $68.05 and $70.29 respectively, having fallen sharply for the past 3 days; the rate of fall…

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Oil Price: crude oil markets are still shaky despite the end of maritime 'incident;

The maritime incident involving a Panamanian-registered ship in the in the Gulf of Oman near the 25 th parallel north that created buzz yesterday has ended; according to certain media reports, the same ship was involved in a similar situation in the region two years ago due to an issue over sanction…

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Oil Price: what really spooked the markets?

The crude oil markets had a rocky start on Monday, perhaps owing to a range of unexpected global developments. At the top of the list was the drone attack, attributed to Iran, on an Israeli-registered tanker off the coast of Oman. The serious attack that led to the death of the captain and a Britis…

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Resistance Axis: is this a resurrected central line for evolving Middle Eastern troubles to move around?

In the State of the Union address in 2002, President George W Bush coined the phrase ‘axis of evil’, while associating it with three arch enemies of the US at that time – Iran, Iraq under Sadaam Hussain and North Korea. In response, Iran defined its own counter-axis and named it, the ‘Axis of Resis…

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