US oil production at lowest levels since September 2014

Crude Oil, 240 min

Crude oil rallied over 4% after reversing at 43.22 in yesterday’s trading. Recent news article from Reuters associates the move higher with a huge wildfire in Canada’s oil sands area while fighting in Libya threatens the North African output. Traders said that WTI prices were driven up by uncontrolled wildfires in Canada that disrupted oil production in the province of Alberta. This morning Kuwait News Agency reports that US oil production drops to lowest level since Sept 2014, sinking by more than 100k barrels a day in the week up to April 29th.

Last three month’s rally has taken the price of crude oil (US Oil) to levels it tried to find support in January – March 2015 period. Price has trended higher strongly in the daily timeframe with some lack of momentum creeping in lately. However, as long as price trends higher it makes sense to look for opportunities in the direction of the trend. Yesterday’s trading created a narrow range candle which at a support indicates that prices are likely to move higher but there’s another narrow range candle (a Doji) created on April 29th which could mean prices are likely to range a while before it’s able to break into new highs.

Should the market create a range it could trace back to the recent lows. I’m therefore looking for long entry signals inside my Buy Area at $43.20 – $44.00 with Target 1 at $45.00 – $45.50 and Target 2 at $46 – $46.70. The area between $45.20 and $46.20 could be a challenge for the bulls and therefore cause intra-day volatility. However the trend is higher in the daily timeframe and should support the buyers’ efforts in the long run. This means that those looking for swing trades might want to look for moves to a Target 3 in $50 – $51 range.