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Oil prices spiked on Thursday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump said that he spoke with the Saudi Crown Prince, and hoped and expected that Saudi Arabia and Russia would “cut back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more,” sending oil prices soaring by 20%.

Oil prices plunged on Monday to their lowest levels in eighteen years, below $20 per barrel, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple global oil demand with no signs of Saudi Arabia backing down on its promised supply surge.

Oil prices crashed after Russia and Saudi Arabia announced that they will abandon OPEC production quotas and open the taps, and while drillers and oilfield service companies are feeling the pain, the world’s largest oil traders are eyeing huge profits. After all, volatility is a trader’s best friend.

You know that the oil markets have truly gone to the dogs when they are suddenly riskier than one of the world’s most volatile commodities: bitcoin.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBC) has told CBS that oil could reach “unimaginably high numbers” if a war with Iran were to erupt, which he suggested could happen if “the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran.” And while MBS is known to engage in hyperbole when it comes to the threat Iran poses, recent events suggest he may have a point here. But what are these unimaginably high numbers he is suggesting? $100 per barrel? $300 per barrel? And what would the world look like if prices really went that high?

Crude oil prices crashed yesterday, losing 7 percent in just one day, which was the biggest daily loss in three years and today continued down in early trading as headwinds overwhelmed any bullish factors. After a rather rocky start to Wednesday trading, oil prices managed to tick upward, with WTI trading at 2.32% by 10:14am EST. Brent had rallied 2.63% to trade at $67.19 at the time of writing, despite pressure by a vicious combination of demand outlook, oversupply concerns and a couple of other factors such as President Trump’s call on OPEC to keep production at current levels.

OPEC and Russia are looking to solidify their cooperation on crude oil production for another decade or two, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Reuters in an interview while on a visit to the United States. “We are working to shift from a year-to-year agreement to a 10-20 year agreement,” the Crown Prince of OPEC’s biggest producer and de facto leader said in New York. “We have agreement on the big picture, but not yet on the detail,” the Crown Prince said. The idea to extend the current oil supply cooperation between OPEC and the Russia-led non-OPEC producers into...

Oil prices rallied in the first week of 2018, supported by increased geopolitical risk and severely cold weather in the eastern U.S., but the ‘perfect storm’ that pushed oil prices higher also raises the risk of a correction and of heightened herd mentality in trade, analysts reckon. Protests in Iran, possible new U.S. sanctions against Tehran, and Venezuela’s economic collapse could be the main geopolitical risks that could drive oil prices up early this year. Oil prices made their strongest start to a year in four years, with both Brent and WTI started trading in 2018 above $60 a barrel...

Most investors look at WTI and Brent prices at Bloomberg or CME Futures, and figure the oil price is in the public domain. You would be about 2 percent correct, because there are hundreds of different grades of oil, and hubs where it is bought and sold. And they all have different prices. Since the age of oil began until a few months ago, most real time oil prices were jealously guarded by marketers, who used it to their advantage in the daily multi-billion dollar physical oil trade. But I’m going to tell you the story of how Stafford and...

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) could lead to global peak oil demand as soon as 2023, which will result in oil prices crashing to $10, Chris Watling, CEO & chief market strategist at Longview Economics, told CNBC on Friday. Watling said he didn’t see oil crashing “in the next few weeks or months, or maybe even quarters, but I think the long-term outlook for oil—because of what’s happening in terms of electric vehicles” with 70 percent of oil used for transportation, is oil plummeting to $10 somewhere around 2023-2025. “We used to talk about peak oil in terms of...

It wasn’t that long ago, 19 years to be precise, when the average oil price was $11.91 per barrel (WTI). Are world conditions such that we could see that price again? Everyone said that oil prices would never fall into the $20 range, but 14 months ago oil prices hit a 14-year low of $26.21 per barrel on February 11, 2016. Are we, or better yet, can we really be looking at the same world conditions that drove those 1998 oil prices down to record lows that almost equaled the 158-year average annual oil price of $11.22 per barrel (WTI)?...

In a rather unconventional warning, Continental Resources chief executive Harold Hamm said on Wednesday that should the U.S. oil industry embark on another spending spree, it could “kill” the market. Speaking at the CERAWeek conference in Houston – one of the largest gatherings of oil executives and ministers, including this year Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Khalid Al-Falih – Hamm said that U.S. crude oil output “could go pretty high”. But Hamm was quick to add, as quoted by Bloomberg: “But it’s going to have to be done in a measured way, or else we kill the market.”

Some 10 million barrels of crude from the U.S.’s strategic reserve are scheduled to be sold later this month, the Department of Energy said. The shipment is part of a total 25 million barrels, to be sold over a period of three years, as per the 21st Century Cures Act, signed in December last year. Sales from the SPR are conducted, according to the DoE, to “respond to a severe energy supply interruption, to prevent or address lesser supply shortages or to conduct evaluations of drawdown and sales procedures.” The Department added that the bidding is open to all companies...

Recession-struck Venezuela will send a new proposal to OPEC and non-OPEC producers to try to stabilize crude oil prices, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday. “Venezuela, as of next week, will circulate a letter with a new proposal, a new formula for the stability of real and just prices so that it can be studied and debated by all the governments that have signed this deal,” the president said in a speech, without providing details, as quoted by Reuters. Venezuela was one of the most vehement supporters and promoters of OPEC’s supply-cut deal, in which OPEC and 11 non-cartel...

Under pressure to take action on rising gasoline prices, President Obama wants Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions. The White House plan, which Obama was to unveil Tuesday, is more likely to draw sharp election-year distinctions with Republicans than have an immediate effect on prices at the pump. The measures seek to boost spending for Wall Street enforcement at a time when congressional Republicans are seeking to limit the reach of federal financial regulations.

<p>May 25, 2003 -- With 13 years of crippling economic sanctions finally lifted, Iraq is set to resume oil exports next month, an interim government official said yesterday, a major step toward rebuilding the country's economy.</p> <p>"By two to three weeks, Iraq will be back in the market," said Thamir Ghadhban, director of Iraq's oil ministry, at a news conference. "It will take a few weeks but we should be producing 1.3 to 1.5 million barrels per day by the middle of next month."</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Crude oil prices rose to their highest level in four weeks yesterday after the International Energy Agency said inventories had tumbled 10 percent from last year. Bombings in Saudi Arabia, the world's top producer, also contributed to the rally. Oil supplies held by the 30 nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ended March at 2.34 billion barrels, down 260 million barrels from a year earlier, according to the agency, which advises industrialized countries on oil policy. Prices have gained 10 percent this month on expectations of further drops...

Iraq's great oil reserves will ease the way to a better future for this downtrodden country, we are told. But the "black gold" is more often a curse than a blessing, according to a new report. There can be few jackpots in this world quite as big as striking oil. As the fuel that drives the world's economy, the "black gold" ranks top of the list of natural resources a government would wish for in its backyard. Perhaps the luckiest of all winners in this lottery of buried wealth is Iraq. While Saudi Arabia is the only country thought...

<p>Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday that the Bush administration's "quiet diplomacy" kept global oil prices from skyrocketing during the war with Iraq.</p> <p>"We have emerged from that period in really much more stable and strong condition than other energy crises in the last 30 years," Mr. Abraham said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.</p>

War and strife help BP to record first-quarter profit LONDON: British energy giant BP plc has produced record profits for the first quarter as a result of war, strikes and unrest in key oil nations that lit a fire under crude and fuel prices during the period. BP’s net profit adjusted for exceptional items and to reflect the current cost of supplies grew 136% from a year ago to US$3.73bil for the three months to March. The result of Britain’s biggest company and the world's No. 3 oil firm was at the top end of analysts’ expectations and came...