Keeping An Eye On The Price Of Crude Oil

All eyes will be on tomorrow's US employment report for November. That will obviously be our focus too. However, we will also be monitoring the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil regularly tomorrow and in coming days. That's because it seems to be on the verge of slipping below $60 (chart). Why does that matter? From a technical perspective, it might signal a significant break below a triangular consolidation pattern, similar to what happened in 2014 and again in 2020.

From a fundamental perspective, there is ample crude oil supply, driven by record US production and sluggish demand in China. US crude oil production rose to a record 23.6mbd during the week of December 5 (chart). Oil field production is at a record 13.8mbd, and natural gas plant liquids plus renewable fuels is at a record 9.8mbd.