A number of important developments have taken place regarding the EU crisis, the US economy and OPEC production levels. These are covered by the following media prints:
- Grant Smith of Bloomberg reports that oil prices fell on April 27th 2012 due to the fact that Standard & Poor renewed the credit rating and lowered it for Spain which has swelled up concerns about EU faltering demand. Aside from that US economy also grew less than forecasted and that it is struggling to address unemployment issues. In a Bloomberg Survey, most of the analysts are bearish on the future oil prices. Also Libya is all set to increase its production to record levels in the upcoming months.
- However just some a day later on April 28th 2012, Mark Shenk of Bloomberg highlights that oil prices rose onto the highest level in three weeks due to market response of higher US consumer spending and better than expected earnings surpassed the lower than expected GDP forecast. However whether this was just a market spur or not depends on the feature that mostly bearish elements are present in the market. These include the credit down rating of Spain as well as record level OPEC production.