Market Close: May 1 Mixed
May 1st, 2015 by loren
Fueling Strategy: Please keep tanks topped, Saturday AM wholesale prices will go UP another 3 Cents – Be Safe
Oil futures ended lower on Friday, pressured by reports that Iraq’s crude exports rose to a 30-year high as production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries stood at its highest level since late 2012.
Prices came off their best monthly gain in nearly six years, and still scored a weekly gain—their seventh weekly rise in a row. June crude lost 48 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $59.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had finished April with a 25% surge. Tracking the continuous contract, oil futures saw a 3.5% weekly gain. That was oil’s seventh-consecutive weekly rise.
Meanwhile, Brent crude for June delivery on London’s ICE Futures exchange—the global benchmark—fell 32 cents, or 0.5%, to $66.46 a barrel. Brent futures rose 1.8% from last Friday’s close. This was their fourth straight weekly win.
On Friday, Baker Hughes said the number of U.S. active oil rigs fell by 24 to 679 for the week, as of May 1, marking 21 straight weeks of declines. Oil prices pared some of their losses after the news.
Oil lost ground Friday after Iraq said its oil exports rose to the highest level in 30 years, said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. “That is amazing because a couple of months ago, fears that ISIS might impact exports never came to fruition.”
News reports indicate Iraq exported about 3.08 million barrels a day in April from 2.98 million barrels a day in March. Also for April, surveys conducted separately by Reuters and Bloomberg showed that OPEC oil output was at or near their highest levels since late 2012. Iraq is not the only country in OPEC increasing its output to fight for the market share,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade. “We have number of countries playing this game.”
For now, oil traders “appeared to be speculating about the replacement” of the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco by businessman Khalid Al-Falih, said Taki Tsaklanos, head of research at Florida-based Secular Investor. The state-owned oil company also named a new chief executive Friday.
Prices are “up for a rest, after a strong month, but we see the price rising in the coming weeks to structural resistance at $68 to $70 per barrel,” Tsaklanos