By Veselin Petkov, Alpari
The International Energy Agency upgraded their forecast for oil demand in 2017 by 1.6m barrels a day in their Oil Market Report. The reason for this revision was strong demand from OECD countries.
From a fundamental point of view, if demand for oil remains stable for the rest of the year, it will be another contributing factor to high oil prices. In terms of technical analysis, the Brent oil price is currently in an upwards trend on the 4-hour timeframe:
While we can see here that the price is currently located at the higher part of the upwards trend, and is approaching the S1 resistance (55.50 USD), there are, as of yet, no reversal signals, and the price will most likely continue to grow. The next resistance (S2) is located at 57.40 USD. The S1 and S2 levels were formed at the beginning of the year, forming a price range from 55.50 USD to 57.40 USD. In my opinion, this exact range will now act as a resistance zone to the price of Brent oil.
At the time of writing this review, Brent oil is trading at 55.35 USD a barrel.