Over the previous two weeks, the price of WTI has lost 0.28% and declined to $44.83/bbl. On September 16, the price reached its two-week low of $43.18/bbl. We consider the level of $42.7-43/bbl as a strong support level, while the resistance level is located above $45.5/bbl.
The price of Brent crude fell over the past two weeks by 1.8% to $46.26/bbl. The spread between the prices of Brent and WTI shrank to $1.43, and that reflects the relative decrease of volatility at the crude oil market.
The resistance level for Brent is now above $48/bbl. However, the price of Brent crude during the last two weeks failed to reach even this level of resistance. The price of Brent reached its two-week high on September 22, when it rose above $47.4/bbl.
Baker Hughes reported that the number of active drilling rigs rose by 2 units to 418 rigs last week (the number of active rigs rises during 11 weeks). However, commercial stocks of oil in the US last week fell by 6.2m bbl, while the market expected the increase in the stocks by 3.35m bbl. The demand for petroleum resources in the US is increasing, but the demand and supply on the global market are still not balanced.
The unofficial meeting of OPEC countries on September 28 is focused on the petroleum and crude oil markets. We do not expect the OPEC states to agree on sn oil production cut on this meeting. However, the next official meeting -- planned for late November -- is likely to be more efficient in terms of the future agreements on supply cut.
We expect the prices of Brent and WTI at the next week at the range of 46-47 bbl.