Tobias Merath Oil Quotations

Since many refineries deferred their maintenance work after the hurricanes, we expect this year's turnaround season to be particularly heavy. As a result, crude oil consumption by refiners should decrease, which could over the next weeks lead to falling oil prices.

Should Hurricane Wilma's path indeed go over Florida and spare the oil infrastructure at the Gulf Coast, as the National Hurricane Center predicts, oil should drop further.

The refinery outages should lead to weak demand for crude oil from the refining sector. It's not crude oil that is in short supply, but gasoline and distillates.

Crude oil inventories increased once more, improving oil availability further. Another important factor is that above-normal temperatures in the U.S. seem to curb heating oil consumption.

With the ongoing political tensions in Iran and with Nigerian militants threatening more attacks on oil companies, short covering should push prices higher next week. Speculators still hold a considerable amount of short positions. With the current news flow, those investors should feel increasingly uncomfortable with their positions.