Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) sees high uncertainty in the oil prices outlook.
"The current values of futures and options contracts continue to suggest very high uncertainty in the price outlook," EIA said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.
WTI futures contracts for May 2015 delivery, traded during the five-day period ending February 5, averaged $52 per barrel while implied volatility averaged 52 percent, EIA said.
This establishes the lower and upper limits of the 95 percent confidence interval for the market's expectations of monthly average WTI prices in May 2015 at $33/bbl and $81/bbl, respectively, EIA believes.
The 95-percent confidence interval for market expectations widens over time, with lower and upper limits of $32 per barrel and $108 per barrel for prices in December, 2015, EIA added.
EIA remained its oil prices forecasts for 2015 and 2016 unchanged from last month's report.
Brent crude oil prices are expected to average $58 barrel in 2015 and $75 per barrel in 2016.
The annual average WTI prices in 2015 and 2016 are expected to be $3 per barrel and $4 per barrel respectively, below Brent.
During electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on February 10, the WTI for March delivery decreased by $2.84 to $50.02 a barrel.
March Brent, which is the benchmark price for products in Europe and Asia, decreased by $1.91 to $56.43 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Aygun Badalova is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow her on Twitter:@AygunBadalova