By Srinivas Chowdary Sunkara // petrobazaar // 1st January 2020.
Brent oil prices fell $2.44 to $66 and WTI oil futures prices ticked down 62 cents to $61.06 a barrel last night. In Shanghai, Crude oil main contract futures prices dropped 6.6 Yuan or 1.35% to 483.5 Yuan/barrel where as MCX crude futures settled down Rs.15 at Rs.4386 yesterday. Brent premium over U.S crude narrowed down to $4.94 during the session.
The world crude oil price indexes settled down on the last trading day of the decade with the low participation as the traders are away for Christmas and new year celebrations. Brent traded down 3.57% while U.S crude dropped above 1% yesterday. Both the benchmark futures notched the biggest annual gains in three years as the Brent gained 23% while WTI rose 34% in three years, Supported by a thaw in the prolonged U.S-Sino trade war and ongoing supply cuts from producer's group. On the data side, China's Purchasing manager's Index (PMI) was unchanged at 50.2 in Dec from Nov. API estimated drawings of 7.8 Mb in the week to Dec 27th in the U.S crude stocks while consensus is on 3.2Mb fall.
Today Morning, Asian markets opened in green but it does not demonstrate any firm trend so far. Analysts are in the opinion that the crude futures are largely expected to trade positive, will face headwinds from subdued global growth momentum and robust U.S shale output levels in the first quarter of 2020. Brent is expected to hover around $63 a barrel as per Reuters poll showed on Tuesday. I dont expect oil prices to move either side sharply. Ongoing middle east tensions and weekly data may spur some volatility in the market.
Good day to all.
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