Oil prices are experiencing choppy weather as they saw a rise at the beginning of the week, followed by a dip for three days, and finally ended the week on a high note. World oil prices gathered momentum once again this week, as they rose- but remained substantially lower than the week's historic peaks. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August rose to US$56.94 per barrel. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in August rose to US$56.94 per barrel. These levels are far below Monday's peak levels of US$60.95 and US$59.59 respectively.
Fears of a global supply crunch gripped the markets at the beginning of the week. These fears were triggered by concern that supply would struggle to meet Q4 demand for the northern hemisphere winter. Reports of an unexpected rise in weekly US crude inventories on Wednesday helped to marginally stabilise the market. There really seems to be no reversal of this uptrend, as the factors supporting the uptrend remain the same -- strong global demand and tight supply capacity both in refinery production and crude oil production. Experts feel that the downtrend was also due to profit-taking by hedge fund managers trying to close their books ahead of the end of the second financial quarter to June.
02-Jul-05 
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