In the past month, U.S. benchmark crude prices fell significantly, while domestic storage levels posted the largest series of builds so far this year. Lower prices and higher inventories represented trend reversals, highlighting the importance of constantly reassessing the state of affairs in the crude supply chain. In this blog, we will discuss several factors that contributed to the recent turn of events, as well as which components will be particularly important going forward. Prices and Inventories Lose Ground After Largely Recovering From Multi-Year Oversupply NYMEX Light Sweet Crude (WTI) front month prices plummeted nearly $10.00/bbl to $66.43/bbl between October 3 and October 23, falling from the highest daily close since November 2014. Prices closed at $67.59/bbl on October 26, remaining relatively low. Before the precipitous drop, WTI prices strengthened $11.40/bbl to $76.41 between August 15 and October 3. Several factors spurred lower prices in recent weeks, including storage […]