WTI traded in a $52.11 – $55.25 range this week driven by sharp moves in currencies, updates related to good and bad behavior on production cuts from OPEC and non OPEC exporters and a poor EIA report. On the bearish side the US Dollar index’s highest print since December 2002 and Iraqi PM al-Abadi’s assertion that their Kurdish region was already violating its export limit agreement put downward pressure on oil early in the week. (Reuters later reported that Iraq has cut production by 200k bpd which is in line with the OPEC agreement.) Libya also added to the negative news by reopening the last of its conflict-shuttered export terminals which- according to Platts- had capacity of up to 230k bpd in 2013. More bullishly, Bloomberg reported Thursday that Saudi Arabia has been fully complicit with its production cuts by reducing output by 486k bpd to 10.06m bpd. Going […]