With holiday festivities finally drawing to an end this week, the New Year rolled infairly quiet for the U.S. base oil arena.
Participation has beenlow-key for several weeks, but activity was expected tobecome a bit more livelyas January gets underway, a few sources suggested. Some players suspected that the big rallyin the stock markets on the first trade day of 2013 could be a good indication that the economy is truly in recovery mode.
U.S. posted prices were unchanged, following a price decrease for Group I postings earlier in December. Group II and III suppliers did not follow. It was understood that some decreases were issued in Europe and Asia in late December.
Fiscal cliff negotiations finally concluding at the “11th hour”gave some much needed support to investors.Stock markets surged on Wednesday and so did oil prices. Some analysts said that the more positive atmosphere could help drivecrude valuestoward $100 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate. And Brent Crude (used to price various kinds of international oil) jumped over $112 per barrel. Both WTI and Brent gained more than a$1.00 from Monday’s tradesession.
At the close of the Wednesday, Jan. 2, CME/Nymex session, front month light sweet crude oil futures ended the day at $93.12 per barrel, up by $2.14/bbl from last weeks settlement at $90.98. Brent Crude was trading at $112.28/bbl at the end of the day yesterday, gaining $1.17/bbl from its week-ago level of $111.11. LLS (Light Louisiana Sweet) crude was trading at a premium of about $18.85/bbl to WTI on Wednesday.
Historic U.S. posted base oil prices and WTI and Brent crude spot prices are available for purchase in Excel format.