Oil Price News: The Range Holds – But For How Long?

The glut continues to build, Russia’s export hiccup failed to shift the broader balance, and WTI remains pinned in a lower-range IB-down structure. Until seasonal buying arrives or a real catalyst hits, the path of least resistance stays sideways-to-lower with only tactical intraday opportunities on the table.

Crude Inventories Stockpile, But Refining Activity Awakens

WTI is up 0.18% for the week. Open at $59.87, High at $61.28, Low at $58.12 and  Close at $59.95.

EIA weekly oil data

In the CPS, oil and natural gas demand continue to grow to mid-century, although coal goes into decline before 2030. In the STEPS (stated policies scenarios), coal use peaks earlier than in the CPS (Current policy scenarios) and oil demand flattens by the end of the decade, but natural gas demand continues to grow into the 2030s, as a wave of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports brings downward pressure on prices.

– IEA World Energy Outlook 2025.

The Calm Before the Storm

The market is strangely balanced, it seems. It feels as if there is something about to kick off that’s big. US invasion of Venezuela? China military action? Break in the stalemate of US/Russian talks? Who knows. All I know is that this market is coiling. We are not currently seeing COT data, so it is near impossible to interpret who is doing what. We should get C.F.T.C data next week.

The Glut IS REAL and is transferring now from sea to land storage. See below the EIA (US Energy Information agency-not top be confused with The IEA International Energy Agency). Have a look at inventory builds-which I covered the last 2 to 3 weeks. And the Conoco Phillips CEO said he doesn’t see a build? Honestly? For a broader view of the oil market and into 2026, have a read of the summary report of the OPEC MOMR, IEA World Energy outlook 2025 and EIAs latest STEO.

Source: Votexa

We forecast that growing global oil production and the transition to the low point of seasonal demand over the winter will accelerate the growth in global oil inventories, causing crude oil prices to continue to fall in the coming months. We forecast that the Brent price will drop to an average of $54/b in the first quarter of 2026 (1Q26) and will average $55/b in 2026.

– EIA weekly report.

Commitment Of Traders Report

Still no updated release of data from the CFTC as of yet. So I will borrow from EIAs COT on ICE Brent and WTI.

What’s the Next Move?

Below, you can see the monthly bars, Decade VW3AP chart. This shows you average price on the decade for WTI $67.95. We are trading with DECA- 0.5 $57.91 as broad technical support. We have had no monthly close below this level since Feb 2021. Just some maths for you, this is not ‘a trade’. Just colour on the average prices on the big view.

WTI Monthly bars. DECA VWAP.

So we can move into something a lot tighter. The market is firmly IB down of the yearly averages. In such a situation, we normally need a blowout on the extreme lows ie. -2 standard deviations or more before we can resolve the IB down condition. I am never net buyer in such conditions until we have the blowout on the lows OR there is a fundamental shift. This HAS NOT HAPPENED. If anything, it has offered up a few strong potential fundamental shifts-Russian oil facilities attacked being the number one. Increased EU and US sanctions being second. Will this weekend’s decision by Russia to suspend exports from Novorossiysk be any different?

Novorossiysk exports approximately 2.2 million barrels of oil per day. This has a high potential to lure in buying, but would need to be an extended export ban of about 7+ days in order to start to really price in. As I finish this report – the exports have just been resumed.

WTI Daily bars. YVWAP.

If we look at the price action from last week and my personal guidance for trades, we can see the market did indeed stay range bound. The blowout on the top, then the short op. Then we got the blowout on the low, pullback in and the buy.

The market is indeed nicely balanced in this lower bound, with buyers refusing to support any trade over Y-1-. See below.

So this is why we are in intraday trade mode UNTIL:

1. Seasonal buying kicks in -Our estimate is December 2nd week 8th through 12th OR
2. We get a fundamental shift/ catalyst driver. Considering that we have seen IT ALL this year in terms of oil upside catalysts- I don’t see one coming.

I do see that in order to flush out the lows, there may be a downside catalyst spurred by an equity market sell off. Watch out for this. If the S&P500 dips over 10%, oil will follow rapidly. It will not be a dip to buy.

WTI 30-min chart.