WTI Crude oil prices were seen holding a range last week despite some hawkish fundamentals that have been supporting for a bullish case in price action.

The developing events pushed Brent crude oil prices higher but the WTI version has remained steady over the week.

This ranging price action is expected to see the increasing risk of a correction to the downside which could mark a technical correction in the short term.

The hawkish fundamentals over the week included the proposed decision by the United States administration and its allies, the six other countries including Russia, China, Germany, France who collectively struck the 2015 Iran Nuclear deal accord.

With President Trump threatening to revoke the deal and to re-impose sanctions on Tehran, tensions have been mounting.

Re-imposing sanctions on Iran could potentially cut off Iran’s crude oil supply which could lead to further tightening in the markets.

Oil prices have remained at the highs largely thanks to the continued decline in crude oil production over the months.

At the meeting in November last year, OPEC and Russia agreed to maintain supply cuts until the end of this year.

From a technical perspective, given that price action has stalled near the highs of $69.00 and failed to breach the previous highs, we expect to see a short term correction to the downside.

With the previous support level at $65.00 being barely tested at the first instance, we expect to see oil prices declining back to this level of support to make a firm retest of this level.

As a result, we maintain the bias in crude oil prices to the downside.

This view changes in the event that oil prices manage to breakout above the $69.00 handle.