Some Markets were closed today out of superstition (or respect for superstition) but not Oil which is controlled by Godless Communists and Muslims so it was open.
Yesterday it rose a bit on news that Russia and the House of Saud had arrived at a production cut agreement.
Today it seems less likely that will have any effect as storage capacity is disappearing (not being destroyed, being used up) and it will take time to implement and people will cheat.
The big problem with this (if you’re looking to increase prices) is the fact that the storage was almost full to begin with which means we didn’t quite work off the last glut and since the amount in storage is equal to months of Demand with no further production, a number that only increases as Global Demand declines due to Coronavirus and it’s Economic disruptions, it’s unlikely that prices will rise again soon which is bad news for U.S. Frackers.
On the other hand Banks and the Fed are busy bailing them out so don’t cry too much for your local Climate Warming Polluter Billionaires.
Oil prices fall again despite Opec+ deal to cut production
by Kalyeena Makortoff, The Guardian
Fri 10 Apr 2020
Oil prices dropped on Friday as traders feared that an Opec deal to slash global supplies by 10% would not offset a historic drop in demand due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The price of Brent crude fell nearly 2.5% to $32 per barrel on Friday, despite news that the oil cartel and allies – known as Opec+ – had reached a deal that would end a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia that threatened to flood the market with more oil than the world could use.
Mexico initially cast some doubt over Opec’s plans, after apparently refusing to sign up to its share of cuts, which would have been 400,000 barrels per day (bpd). The country instead offered to cut 100,000 bpd.
However, the central American country signalled on Friday that the US may be willing to make further cuts to its production in order to allow Mexico to make less stringent reductions. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that US president Donald Trump had agreed to help out by cutting additional US output.
The cuts by the oil producer group are expected to reduce global supplies by 10%, or 10m bpd, in an effort to raise prices which hit an 18-year low of $22 per barrel last month. It will also push other oil-producing states, including the US, to cut a further 5m bdp to help navigate the deepest oil crisis in decades.
Global oil fuel demand has plunged by as much as 30% or 30m bdp during the coronavirus outbreak, as steps to fight the disease have grounded planes, cut vehicle usage and curbed economic activity.
Even if Opec+ succeeded in reducing output by 15m bpd, it may not be enough to prop up prices while demand continues to drop during the lockdown. Despite the oil cartel’s best efforts, global storage facilities could still quickly fill up.
Analysts from Goldman Sachs are forecasting that the coronavirus crisis will slash demand by 19m bpd in April and May. “Such cuts, if agreed upon tomorrow, would still be too little and too late to prevent a decline in prices in coming weeks as storage capacity becomes saturated.”
But Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at AxiCorp, an online currency trading platform, said that while the deal will only partially offset the decline in oil prices, “that’s what it was supposed to do”.
He added: “The storm clouds for oil prices will only completely dissipate when lockdowns are lifted.”
Despite which the Keystone XL Pipeline which is both a White Elephant and and Environmental Disaster proceeds apace.