Mayra P. Saefond and William Watts, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK
EnergiesNet.com 03 22 2024

Oil futures finished lower on Friday but tallied a slight gain for the week as a United Nations Gaza ceasefire resolution failed to pass and attacks between Russia and Ukraine intensified.

Price moves

• West Texas Intermediate crude CL00, -0.32% for May delivery CL.1, -0.32% CLK24, -0.32% fell 44 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $80.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices edged up by nearly 0.1% for the week, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
  
  
• May Brent crude BRNK24, +0.15%, the global benchmark, shed 35 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $85.43 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, ending 0.1% higher on the week. June Brent BRN00, +0.13% BRNM24, +0.13%, the most actively traded contract, lost 41 cents, or 0.5%, at $84.83 a barrel.
  
  
• April gasoline RBJ24, +0.28% tacked on 0.5% to $2.74 a gallon, edging up by 0.7% for the week.
  
  
• April heating oil HOJ24, -0.36% declined by 0.6% to $2.65 a gallon, for a weekly loss of 2.7%.
  
  
• Natural gas for April delivery NGJ24, -1.72% settled at $1.66 per million British thermal units, down 1.4% on Friday, and 0.2% higher for the week.

Market drivers

Oil has been steady at around $80 and is “operating like a yoyo — bouncing up and down but not really going anywhere,” said Manish Raj, managing director at Velandera Energy Partners. “That is because the markets are flush with ample inventory worldwide and the [Federal Reserve is] ghosting out on interest-rate timing.”

Oil has been steady around $80 and is ‘operating like a yoyo — bouncing up and down but not really going anywhere.’ — Manish Raj, Velandera Energy Partners

“Although oil’s direction isn’t straightforward, we are buying the dips as we feel downside is limited” as long as Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries “continues its resolve” to stick to its voluntary production cuts, Raj told MarketWatch.

On Friday, a U.S.-led United Nations resolution for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war failed to pass after Russia and China vetoed it.

The draft resolution had triggered a “bull market squeeze” on Thursday, pressuring prices, Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said in a note.

The passage of the resolution would have helped to temporarily ease some concerns about tensions in the oil-rich Middle East, but prices ended a bit lower Friday despite the resolution’s failure to pass.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has urged Ukraine to stop its attacks on Russian energy facilities, the Financial Times reported, warning that the drone strikes that are estimated to have knocked around 7% of the country’s refining capacity offline threaten to drive up global oil prices and provoke retaliation.

“Ukraine officials have stated the intent is to damage a key industry that provides revenue for Russia’s war and to disrupt domestic fuel supplies,” analysts at ICICI Bank said in a note Friday.

Houthi militants in Yemen continue to target shipping vessels in the Red Sea, despite airstrikes from the U.S. that have resulted in an “increase in concerns over more disruptions to supplies from the region,” ICICI Bank analysts said.

“However, so far the hit to actual supply from developments in the Middle-East has not taken place — that is in turn limiting the degree of upside in Brent crude-oil prices,” they said.

Meanwhile, oil prices posted back-to-back declines in the wake of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve policy announcement, despite “macroeconomic optimism fueled by the [Fed’s] indication of three potential rate cuts” in 2024 that typically is seen as bullish for oil sales and the economy, Innes said. “This suggests [that] a more favorable geopolitical landscape regarding the cease-fire resolution outweighs the positive outlook on oil markets driven by the Fed and the oil industry think tank demand upgrades.”

marketwatch.com 03 22 2024