Oil Lower on Friday but Strong Weekly Gains on Disruption Concerns

Oil fell 0.35 percent on Friday compounding on losses seen on Thursday, but will head into the weekend with a 1.09 percent gain. Supply disruptions have lifted prices after the 2014, be it the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and major producers agreement to limit their output to weather and geopolitical disputes.


West Texas Intermediate graph

Hurricane Florence in the US was downgraded and with it the negative short term effect on potential disruptions. IEA reported today that OPEC is starting to ramp up production by 420,000 daily barrels more than making up for the impact that the sanctions on Iranian exports will have on supply.

Global demand for crude has not shown signs of recovery and if producers start pumping there is a risk that oversupply could once again bring instability to oil prices.


West Texas Intermediate graph

Geopolitical factors like the US-China trade tensions will continue to put downward pressure on crude prices as higher levels of protectionist measures tend to slow down global growth.

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Alfonso Esparza

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.
Alfonso Esparza