Oil futures were up slightly on Friday, while natural-gas futures extended a slump after ending the previous session at its lowest in more than six months.
Price action
- West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery
CL.1,
+0.47%CL00,
+0.47%CLZ22,
+0.47%,
the U.S. benchmark, was up 36 cents, or 0.4%, at $84.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. - December Brent crude
BRN00,
+0.44%BRNZ22,
+0.44%,
the global benchmark, rose 35 cents, or 0.4%, to $92.73 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. - Back on Nymex, November gasoline
RBX22,
+0.88%
rose 0.7% to $2.667 a gallon, while December heating oil
HOZ22,
+0.48%
was up 0.8% at $3.512 a gallon. - November natural gas
NGX22,
-4.74%
fell 4% to $5.145 per million British thermal units, on track for a weekly fall of 20%.
Market drivers
Crude oil has seen support this week on prospects for a loosening of some of China’s COVID-19 curbs, after news reports on Thursday said Beijing was weighing an easing of some quarantine restrictions on visitors to the country. China’s strict zero-COVID policy has crimped demand for crude.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden this week announced the release of 15 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the final tranche of a 180 million barrel release announced in March. The administration also said it would move to refill the SPR, signaling it would make purchases if crude slid toward $70 a barrel in an effort to help provide a floor that would give domestic producers an incentive to increase output.
Oil has also tracked volatile trading in equities, with pressure tied to ongoing worries that aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks will cause a sharp global economic downturn.
“Looking ahead, we continue to see WTI crude oil futures as rangebound between support at $79/barrel backed by the Biden administration’s pledge to buy oil for the SPR towards the $70 area, and resistance near $93/barrel due to economic worries and demand concerns,” wrote analysts at Sevens Report Research, in a Friday note.
Natural gas, meanwhile, has pulled back sharply as domestic supplies have built and concerns about broader market tightness as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s curtailment of gas flows to Europe appear to have faded for now, analysts said.
The Energy Information Administration on Thursday said U.S. natural gas in storage rose by 111 billion cubic feet in the week ended Oct. 14. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, on average, had looked for an injection of 102 billion cubic feet.
Also, a federal regulator this week said Freeport LNG must receive full approvals before its planned November restart of a Texas export facility, one of the nation’s largest, planned for November, news reports said. The facility has been closed since a June 8 fire.
“The market took the news to mean that restart could be delayed further, with the corresponding 2.5 [billion cubic feet] per day of gas continuing to be sent to storage until approval is granted. Seasonable to above normal temps from the last week of October into the first week of November are also putting pressure on price,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho, in a note.
Oil futures were up slightly on Friday, while natural-gas futures extended a slump after ending the previous session at its lowest in more than six months.
Price action
- West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery
CL.1,
+0.47%CL00,
+0.47%CLZ22,
+0.47%,
the U.S. benchmark, was up 36 cents, or 0.4%, at $84.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. - December Brent crude
BRN00,
+0.44%BRNZ22,
+0.44%,
the global benchmark, rose 35 cents, or 0.4%, to $92.73 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. - Back on Nymex, November gasoline
RBX22,
+0.88%
rose 0.7% to $2.667 a gallon, while December heating oil
HOZ22,
+0.48%
was up 0.8% at $3.512 a gallon. - November natural gas
NGX22,
-4.74%
fell 4% to $5.145 per million British thermal units, on track for a weekly fall of 20%.
Market drivers
Crude oil has seen support this week on prospects for a loosening of some of China’s COVID-19 curbs, after news reports on Thursday said Beijing was weighing an easing of some quarantine restrictions on visitors to the country. China’s strict zero-COVID policy has crimped demand for crude.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden this week announced the release of 15 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the final tranche of a 180 million barrel release announced in March. The administration also said it would move to refill the SPR, signaling it would make purchases if crude slid toward $70 a barrel in an effort to help provide a floor that would give domestic producers an incentive to increase output.
Oil has also tracked volatile trading in equities, with pressure tied to ongoing worries that aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks will cause a sharp global economic downturn.
“Looking ahead, we continue to see WTI crude oil futures as rangebound between support at $79/barrel backed by the Biden administration’s pledge to buy oil for the SPR towards the $70 area, and resistance near $93/barrel due to economic worries and demand concerns,” wrote analysts at Sevens Report Research, in a Friday note.
Natural gas, meanwhile, has pulled back sharply as domestic supplies have built and concerns about broader market tightness as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s curtailment of gas flows to Europe appear to have faded for now, analysts said.
The Energy Information Administration on Thursday said U.S. natural gas in storage rose by 111 billion cubic feet in the week ended Oct. 14. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, on average, had looked for an injection of 102 billion cubic feet.
Also, a federal regulator this week said Freeport LNG must receive full approvals before its planned November restart of a Texas export facility, one of the nation’s largest, planned for November, news reports said. The facility has been closed since a June 8 fire.
“The market took the news to mean that restart could be delayed further, with the corresponding 2.5 [billion cubic feet] per day of gas continuing to be sent to storage until approval is granted. Seasonable to above normal temps from the last week of October into the first week of November are also putting pressure on price,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho, in a note.
