WTI crude futures erased initial gains to slip more than 2% in afternoon trades on Wednesday, with the barrel trading below $110 with recession jitters and a mixed EIA storage report creating downward pressure amid a backdrop of tight global supplies. Domestic storage levels shrank by 2.8 million barrels last week, which came lower than an API estimate of 3.8 million barrels, while gasoline stocks have increased by more than 4 million barrels in the past two weeks, signaling that record prices could have started to impact demand. On the supply side, major producers Saudi Arabia and the UAE have little to no extra capacity to raise output, while political unrest in Libya and Ecuador threatened to tighten supply further. Meanwhile, the OPEC meeting ended without any policy changes and the OPEC+ meeting tomorrow is likely to end similarly.
Historically, Crude oil reached an all time high of 147.27 in July of 2008. Crude oil - data, forecasts, historical chart - was last updated on June of 2022.
Crude oil is expected to trade at 111.65 USD/BBL by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 124.65 in 12 months time.