Oil prices scaled down by about 1 percent on Thursday because of meteorological warning and unstable situation in Syria. Friday, the 2ndof October, and the following days represent alternations in the oil market standing.
Recently oil prices have been unstable due to numerous reasons. On Thursday the weather forecast influenced the US oil. The hurricane Joaquin, formed on September 28, was forecasted to get category 3 hurricane status. It had been mentioned earlier in the NHC report, that hurricane Joaquin may supposedly hit the New Jersey coast and New York Harbor, where several oil refineries and other oil facilities are situated. But the latest information on the storm suggested that it would move over to Bahamas and strike at the areas of 100 miles distance from New York. This situation brought some alternations into the oil markets, the prices reacted on it by 0,8 percent drop for the US West Texas Intermediate crude.
Another source of uncertainty in terms of oil prices is the situation in Syria. Russia's involvement in the conflict makes the whole problem even more complicated. But the recent comments of Russian minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, gave some kind of relief to the market, reducing the price pumping factors. Recently Russia launched air attacks in order to support President al-Assad's government on Wednesday in a large-scale intervention on the Middle East. This enhanced the volume of strikes in the region being held without coordination between Wahington and Moscow. But on the United Nations conference Lavrov said that the political process is to be sustainable, Russia consider to be terrorists only those, who have been recognized as such buy the United Nation or by the Russian Federation. The situation seems to stabilize after these statements, although there has been announced about some official negotiation to be held between the US and Russian militaries in a short time, so the situation may have an unpredictable twist.
After the prices drop on Thursday, some new activity is observed on the market. It started on Friday, when the US oil rig court spoke on falling production in the top-producing countries. This news booster the price index by nearly 2 percent and settled them at $45.54 a barrel. A weekly report of Baker Hughes showed that US oil companies cut down the number of operating rigs drilling for oil by 26, and this data changed the recent scaling down of prices. Despite the decreasing number of the rigs, the oil production has reached a point of 9.4 million barrels per day, as compared to 9.3 million in June.
The renewed Joaquin hurricane monitoring data have also contributed to the oil prices. As of today, it has reached category 4 and, however, it doesn't pose any threat to the US East Coast, as well as oil refineries there. On Sunday it stroke Bermuda with heavy rainfalls and wind gusts of over 60 mph. Now it's moving further to North-Eastward away from Bermuda.
Since Thursday the US oil prices are rising and currently they are on the highest point in the sequence of days. As for 5 October, the figures are settled at about $46 and some change. Observing this dynamics we may make an assumption of further boosting.
National Hurricane Center (NHC) is a division of the United States National Weather Service, located in Florida International University. It is in charge of tracing and forecasting weather systems on the territory between the prime meridian and the 140th meridian west, which means the whole Western hemisphere.
West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), also known as Texas light sweet is a type of oil crude, which is considered to be a figure of merit for oil pricing.
Baker Hughes is one of the world's biggest companies for oil services; it carries out business in more the 90 countries. It provides services for oil drilling, production, evaluation and consulting. Has its headquarters in Houston.
