Oil rallied today, Monday, March 27, for the first time in, well, quite a while. Oil is likely to finish with a loss in March, for a fifth monthly drop.
So today’s move, which saw West Texas Intermediate jump by almost 55, marked quite a shift in direction.
You can put the rally down to relief that the banking crisis didn’t get worse on Monday, or to a legal dispute between Iraq, its semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, and Turkey that halted have halted 400,000 barrels a day of exports, or the oil market getting over its disappointment that the Biden administration isn’t moving more aggressively to refill the Strategic Oil Reserve. Or just a snap back after so many down days.
Oil traders don’t seem willing to say a longer rally is in the cards. Very contained optimism seems to be the mood of the day as in this quote on Bloomberg: “It does look like the panic of the past fortnight is abating, which should allow crude to float back up,” said Vandana Hari, the founder of Vanda Insights in Singapore. “The situation is still fragile, I don’t think anyone is 100% sure that the Western banking sector is out of the woods.”
Oil stocks moved up on Monday with Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) gaining 1.14% and ConocoPhillips (COP) picking up 2.15%.
