Oil Rises as Canadian Wildfire Forces Evacuation of Fort McMurray

May 4, 2016 Share Print 0

Oil rose toward $46 a barrel on Wednesday as reduced production in Canada’s oil sands region due to a wildfire pushed aside concerns about excess global supplies and expectations of rising U.S. crude inventories.

The Canadian province of Alberta was evacuating the entire population of Fort McMurray where a wildfire took hold in the heart of the country’s oil sands region, prompting some companies to cut output.

Brent crude LCOc1 was up 92 cents at $45.89 at 1401 GMT (9:01 a.m. ET). It reached a 2016 high of $48.50 on Friday, but settled lower on that day and fell again on Monday and Tuesday. U.S. crude CLc1 was up $1.17 at $44.82.

“Oil prices could receive support from the wildfires in the Canadian oil province of Alberta,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.

Brent crude has fallen more than 5 percent from Friday’s high in response to rising output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries , signs of economic slowdown in the United States and Asia, and a stronger dollar.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.