United States oil prices reached their highest since the year 2015 once again on Tuesday since speculators risk on the continued price hikes amidst production cut which is led by the OPEC and the decline in drilling activity in America.
(WTI) U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 hit $62.13 per barrel at 0123 GMT. They marked a May-2015 high in early trading at $62.56 per barrel.
Apart from the 2015 high, which was a brief intraday increase, Tuesday’s top level was the highest level for WTI since the month of December of 2014.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 hit $68.12 a barrel, more than their last close. Brent reached $68.27 last week, seen as its strongest since May of 2015.
According to traders, prices were primarily being pushed up by speculative money bring shifted into crude futures on indications of a tighter market after a year of Russian and OPEC-led output cuts which is expected to last the whole year of 2018.
Traders said that the minute drop in the amount of United States rigs drilling for new production was backing up WTI.
According to oil services firm Baker Hughes, the total number of rigs drilling for oil dropped to 742 by 5 in the week to the 5th January.
Some traders are stating that the markets are getting ahead of themselves despite of the bullish run that caused crude prices to increase by over 10 percent since the early December.
The number of operational rigs in the U.S. are still significantly over the lows of 316 in June of 2016 and the U.S. crude production C-OUT-T-EIA is predicted to surpass 10 million barrels per day soon, reaching a level only Saudi Arabia and Russia have achieved so far.