The Haney Group: Wti Crude At A Low, With Eu Probing Price Fixing

By Author: David Roberts
Total Articles: 13
Comment this article

The Haney Group is tracking West Texas crude as prices dropped to the lowest mark in almost two weeks, with the market overall showing signs of supplies rising. EU officials are investigating oil companies with regard to antitrust violations concerning manipulation of prices. Both of these developments are spelling out to attentive investor’s solid returns.

“Futures showed little change in New York after dropping for four days continuing an overall downturn creating the longest run of losses this year. Crude inventories gained 1.1 million barrels last week, according to the API. A report released today shows stockpiles climbed 450,000 barrels. Coupled with more information breaking about Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Statoil ASA and Platts being investigated after news the EU Commission conducted raids in three countries. Proving once again that with diversity solid gains arise whether a market is moving up or down with correct analysis,” David Holmes Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions at The Haney Group said today.

“Inventories are high, there are no geopolitical issues at the moment, and ...
... with the industry needing to keep a low profile due to the investigations oil should drop,” David Holmes stated adding, “We are hearing reports predicting that West Texas will drop to $92.50 or lower a barrel.”

WTI delivering in June was at $94.01 a barrel, down 20 cents today. The volume of all contracts was 59 percent under the 100-day average. Prices decreased 96 cents to $94.21 yesterday, the biggest drop since May 1. Brent Crude delivering in June fell 25 cents to $102.35 a barrel in London. The EU benchmark was at a premium of $8.34 to WTI, down from $8.39 the day before. The EU Commission is investigating information that companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and other products.

Shell and the others of course say they are “fully cooperating” with the investigation. The possible violations relate to prices on Platts.

“This is a solid trend to follow with now being the time to get onboard, strategic planning leading to achieving a profitable end for our investors is the goal” ended The Haney Group’s Senior Vice President David Holmes’ observation.