Brent and WTI oil prices surged to the highest level since June 2015, with brent reaching close to $63 per barrel and WTI breaking one-year long $42-$56 range.Prices have been reacting firm these days on account of: 1. Strong hope that Opec will continue its 1.8 million barrels per day (mbpd) output cut to the end of 2018; 2. Declining trend of US crude oil stocks.US rig count fell by 8 to 729 units in last week, Baker Hughes reported last Friday. There is strong consensus in the market that they will extend its 1.8 mbpd output cut to the end of 2018 in its November meeting, which is expiring in March 2018. Also, they are not in position to give any shock to the market; so likelihood of not extending output cut beyond March 2018 is having very weak probability.

Source: Economic Times November 07, 2017 13:30 UTC