WTI rose for fifth consecutive week

Oil prices are continuing to fluctuate as they did last week. After rising on Friday, prices are largely shedding their gains again today. Brent has dropped to $48 per barrel and WTI to $45 per barrel. At 640, the oil rig count is now only marginally above its end-of-June low, i.e. the lion's share of the increase seen between early July and late August has now been reversed again.

Speculative financial investors expanded their net long positions in WTI by just shy of 20,000 to 163,800 contracts in the week to 22 September, no doubt in anticipation of falling US oil output, notes Commerzbank. Speculative net long positions in WTI have thus risen for the fifth week in a row and now find themselves at their highest level since the beginning of July.