Cushings Stocks Reign In Oil Prices

http://bit.ly/7XwAG

Not everything that the Obama administration has done in the past year has been negative,though it has been on the losing side in the year end November elections,indicating acute voter dissatisfaction. One of the commendable measures though unheralded, has been its ability to reign in the oil prices due to positive  well planned decisive stocking in advance and a better co-related distribution with transparency of  information.
Over the past few months there has been an ongoing struggle between the WTI and Brent sweet crude.The Obama  administrations decision to continuously  raise stocks of oil at Cushings has been responsible for the widening gap between the two leading sweet oil crude indices the Brent and the WTI. In the month of May the WTI broke the Brent's continuous upward rise and dragged down oil prices after it had relentlessly climbed for 6 weeks due to intense speculative pressure. In December it is holding down prices to just below $90 a barrel despite the unprecedented cold wave across Europe, parts of North America and Asia.
The gap between the Brent and the WTI had risen to $5.15 in May, before the WTI dragged down the speculative Brent index due to rising stocks at Cushings. On December 15th the Brent jumped again by
massive 0.99 ahead of a cold and wet Christmas in Europe after crossing the $90 barrier a week ago. At $92.2 per barrel it expanded over the US January crude price level by $3.58  after the WTI rose by 34 cents. Fortunately rising stocks in Cushings which at 35.9 million barrels is the highest since August 2010
has thwarted the advance of crude.

The Obama administration and the  Chinese Govt, the two biggest consumers of oil, both deserve a lot of credit for the way they have stocked in advance warding off last minute panic buying of oil. It is largely due to their prudence that Oil has not closed near the $100 mark predicted by analysts  early during the year. It is time the European Governments learn from the US and stock in advance so as to ensure more stability in the Brent index which has been always the most volatile