Oil remains elevated, boosted by production limits and declining stock

• Crude oil continues to pin into recent highs as production limits ease energy worries.
• A continuing slump in global growth is increasingly worrying for global financial markets, limiting gains.

Crude markets are remaining pinned into higher territory with WTI barrels hanging on the 52.25 level as energies see continued support from declining US barrel counts and continued production limits from OPEC+, helping to assuage crude investors’ concerns about a broad-market supply glut.

US crude prices have lifted nearly 9% this week, and American oil prices are on track to mark in their largest weekly gain in over two years. Saudi Arabia continues to work over OPEC’s production levels in an effort to bolster crude prices, with the Saudi government heavily dependent on high oil prices to balance their budgets, while supply curbs elsewhere are expected to continue alleviating oil prices, with Norway set to reduce their oil production levels to thirty-year lows.

Despite bullish winds blowing oil prices, a continued US government shutdown and continued signs of a global economic slowdown are keeping crude barrels constrained where they are for the time being, and WTI clipped off of a near-term high of 52.75 as broader-market concerns hamper oil’s progress.

WTI Technical Levels