Crude oil prices continued to rise throughout last week amid the ongoing tensions in the Middle East and North Africa regions, where despite the no-fly zone imposed on Libya by the U.S. Security Council, however, the situation hasn't eased yet, where Colonel Muammar Gaddafi continues to resist calls to step down.
Oil supplies from Libya seem to have stopped completely, and although OPEC members increased their production level to compensate for the shortage of oil supplies from Libya, yet traders and investors are still worried that OPEC won't be able to compensate for any further shortage of supply, since the situation in the Middle East continue to explode, where demonstrators in Yemen now are calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
Meanwhile, the situation in Japan seems to have eased noticeably after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that caused huge destruction to several nuclear reactors, but as efforts continue to contain the crisis, investors shifted their focus on other developments around the globe, including the European debt crisis and the Middle East crisis.
Also, this upcoming week we have major economic news from the United States, where the income report will be released on Monday at 12:30, while the jobs report will be released on Friday also at 12:30, so we should expect the U.S. to take the center stage, where data from the housing and manufacturing sectors will be also released throughout the week.
Wednesday, 14:30. The Department of Energy will release the weekly petroleum status for the week ending March 18, where the report showed that crude oil inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels.
More March 28, 2011 Fundamental Analysis:
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