Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of December 27, 2016.
Crude oil: Spot West Texas Intermediate crude ($53.72) continues to hover above support at $52, but not much progress has been made in the past three weeks. The last three sessions this week were spinning tops on the daily chart. The path of least resistance remains down.
Since OPEC’s output cutback deal on November 30, U.S. crude production has gone up, but not by a whole lot, although the risk is probably to the upside. In the week ended December 2, production was 8.7 million barrels per day. In the week ended last Friday, this stood at 8.77 mb/d, down 20,000 b/d week-over-week.
Crude imports fell by 304,000 b/d to 8.2 mb/d.
Stocks of gasoline and distillates fell, too, by 1.6 million barrels to 227.1 million barrels and by 1.9 million barrels to 151.6 million barrels, respectively.
Crude stocks, however, rose to 486.1 million barrels, up 614,000 barrels, to a four-week high. Refinery utilization dropped a tad, down 0.5 percent to 90 percent; the prior week was at a 13-week high.
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