US Crude Oil Prices near 18-Month High: What’s Next?

US crude oil (BNO) (USO) (UCO) (IEZ) prices are near an 18-month high as of February 6, 2017. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (SPY), Dow Jones, and NASDAQ are near all-time highs. The bullish momentum in the US stock market could support oil demand and oil prices. For more on crude oil prices, read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

US crude oil prices settled at $54.1 per barrel on December 28, 2016—the highest since July 14, 2015. As of February 3, 2017, crude oil prices are 0.5% below their highs.

• successful implementation of major oil producers’ production cut deal
• India and China’s crude oil demand
• US gasoline demand
• Fall in Russia’s crude oil production—read Part 1 of this series to learn more.

US crude oil settled at $26.21 per barrel on February 11, 2016. Crude oil prices hit 13-year lows due to the following:

• record US crude oil production in 2015
• record OPEC crude oil production
• record Russian oil production
• high global crude oil and refined products inventories

As of February 3, 2017, crude oil prices have risen 105.4% from their 2016 lows. Higher crude oil (IYE) (IXC) (FENY) (SCO) prices have a positive impact on oil producers’ earnings such as Occidental Petroleum (OXY), ExxonMobil (XOM), QEP Resources (QEP), Hess (HES), and PDC Energy (PDCE).

• US crude oil production
• US crude oil inventories
• Trump’s energy policy
• OECD crude oil inventories
• rising Libyan and Nigerian crude oil production
• global crude oil supply outages
• Iran’s crude oil production

Tortoise Capital Advisors thinks that US WTI and Brent crude oil prices could trade between $50 and $60 per barrel in 2017. In the last part of this series, we’ll look at some crude oil price forecasts.

In the next part of the series, we’ll look at Cushing crude oil inventories and their impact on crude oil prices.