Get ready for the game changer of this week – “US Crude Oil Inventories”.

Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 16:00 GMT

Last week, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a drop in US production and an eighth consecutive weekly decline for US crude inventory levels (-4.948M vs. -3.890M expected).

The day after the release, WTI Crude Oil shot over $70 intraday.

What do you think?

Will this week’s US crude inventory levels continue to decline or will the situation change, and US OIL will start reversing?

What is the Outlook for Crude Oil?

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Short-Term Energy Outlook sees West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil spot prices to average $55 per barrel in 2018 and $57 per barrel in 2019, about $4-5 per barrel less than the international crude benchmark of Brent oil.

This follows an expected increase of Asian demand of crude oil and petroleum products.

Furthermore, the EIA expects a rise of global inventories in 2018 and 2019, which are currently artificially controlled by the OPEC and non-OPEC agreement on production cuts, aimed at reducing global oil inventories.

This agreement is expected to expire at the end of 2018, leading to an increase of global production, and a drop of crude oil prices.

The EIA Short-Term Outlook sees Crude oil trading, on average, at a discount to current prices.

What will it be the catalyst that causes crude prices to reverse? Or perhaps the EIA has underestimated the potential of crude oil to rally to multi-year highs?