Market Report & Analysis for 7/17/2018 Morning Edition

Morning Market Overview

Oil prices recovered some of the weekly loss on Friday with the complex declining for the second week in a row. The post OPEC meeting rally starting on June 22 has peaked for now as market participants have shifted their focus to the production increasing side of the equation and away for the geopolitically driven declines in production.

The above said the decline side of the equation is still a major concern with production losses coming from a strike in Norway as well losses from Iran, Venezuela, Angola and a high level of uncertainty in Libya.

Libyan ports were re-opened last week but the crude oil producing and export areas of the country remain very unstable and exports can be shut-down again at any time. Friday afternoon the latest Baker Hughes data hit the media airwaves reporting the number of rigs deployed to the US oil sector remained steady and unchanged on the week after increasing during the previous week.

Total rigs deployed to the oil sector are higher by 98 or 12.8 percent year over year. Total US crude oil production is about 17.5 percent above where it was for the same week a year ago. This week’s production came in at 10.931 million bpd.