WTI remains depressed near $44.60, focus on NFP

Crude oil prices are extending on Friday their weekly decline, dragging the West Texas Intermediate to the vicinity of the $44.30 area per barrel.

WTI focus on NFP, Fedspeak

Prices for the WTI remain in the area of 2-month lows, falling almost uninterruptedly since fresh 2016 peaks just below the $52.00 recorded on October 19.

Prices for the black gold have accelerated the downside this week following massive increases in crude oil supplies, as reported by the API (Tuesday) and the EIA (Wednesday), the latter with over 14 million barrels, the largest in EIA’s history.

In addition, scepticism around the likeliness of a deal on an output freeze at the OPEC meeting in Vienna later in the month is on the rise, undermining prospects of any recovery in prices.

Adding insult to injury, the OPEC said earlier in the week that the cartel has increased its oil production to 34 mbpd during October, collaborating with the downbeat sentiment among traders.

Later in the NA session, October’s Non-farm Payrolls are due, with consensus seeing the economy to have added 175K jobs during last month. In addition a slew of FOMC governors are due to speak: Atlanta Fed D.Lockhart (2018 voter, centrist), L.Brainard (permanent voter, dovish), Dallas Fed R. Kaplan (2017 voter, neutral), Minneapolis Fed N.Kashkari (2017 voter, neutral) and S.Fischer (permanent voter, hawkish).

Towards the end of the week, the report by Baker Hughes on the UD drilling activity is also due.

WTI levels to consider

At the moment the barrel of WTI is losing 0.04% at $44.64 and a breakdown of $44.19 (low Sep.27) would expose $43.53 (200-day sma) and finally $42.55 (low Sep.20). On the other hand, the next resistance aligns at $46.32 (100-day sma) followed by $47.22 (55-day sma) and finally $49.12 (20-day sma).

To learn more about this topic, check our video analysis.