MCX Crude Target Today: Crude Oil yesterday settled down by 5.45% at 4233 on concerns that new pandemic curbs and slow vaccine rollouts in Europe will slow recovery in fuel demand and as producers cut prices, indicating ample oil supply.
OPEC+ compliance with oil production cuts in February rose to 113%, two OPEC+ sources from the producer group told.The figure compares with a January compliance figure of 103%.
U.S. energy firms added the most oil and natural gas rigs in a week since January even as oil prices pulled back from a recent 28-month high.The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose nine to 411 in the week to March 19, its highest since April, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said in its closely followed report.
Money managers raised their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to March 16, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday.
The speculator group raise its combined futures and options position in New York and London by 3,232 contracts to 411,107 during the period. The data exclude trader positions in the NYMEX financial crude oil futures contract, which is normally included in our aggregate calculations. The data were not provided by the CFTC.
WTI crude had another dismal day, plunging over 6% on Tuesday. Rising virus cases in Europe are proving to be the catalyst in oil’s selloff. Bart Melek, Head of Commodity Strategy at TD Securities, notes that WTI has room to sink to the $52 level.
MCX Crude Target Today Hit 4292 To 4402
“The swing lower was triggered by the deteriorating near-term demand outlook in the face of still hampered refineries, surging interest rates and renewed European lockdowns. Expectations that China will import more Iranian oil also played a roll in driving crude prices lower.”
“Given that many in the market believe that Chinese imports of Iranian oil will increase to as much as 856,000 bpd (+129% from February), and considering that the sudden influx of Iranian oil is causing congestion in ports, as tankers are offloaded, there may be less able to offload supplies from other sources.
This in combination with Saudi Arabia possibly reversing its one million b/d production cuts, and more OPEC+ oil overall could mean that WTI is at risk of correcting all the way down to $52/b.”
