Oil backing away as OPEC considers lifting numbers, WTI back into $71.50

Crude is retreating slightly, and WTI is backing into 71.50 as supply increases threaten oil's recent run-up on the charts.

With oil supplies expected to contract from Venezuela and Iran, the former struggling to produce crude in the midst of a tumultuous crisis, and the latter looking down the barrel at stiff sanctions from the US. With oil expected to be constrained from the two critical oil-producers, the OPEC is considering ramping up production in response, and the concept of OPEC upping their output is clamping down on oil prices.

On the US side, weekly crude stocks rose unexpectedly, with commercial inventories rising by 5.8 million barrels, going in the complete opposite direction of the forecast 1.6 million barrel contraction expected by analysts.

WTI levels to watch

WTI crude prices have eased back from the 73.00 major level, and that will become the bull's next challenge, but if a slide were to begin to form, supports sit at May's low near 66.80 and the last swing low of 61.80, while the next resistance point beyond 73.00 could begin to form up near the 161.8 Fibonacci expansion level near 75.70.