Jakarta, GIC Trade – WTI crude futures held near $72 a barrel on Thursday after surging nearly 3% in the previous session, supported by supply cuts from major oil producers and a large drop in U.S. crude stockpiles. 
 
Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia said it would extend its July production cuts by 1 million barrels per day until August, while Russia said it would cut exports by 500,000 barrels per day. 
 
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the joint production cuts were proven wrong, warning that OPEC+ would do "whatever it takes" to support the oil market. In the U.S., industry data showed that crude inventories in the country fell by 4.382 million barrels last week, marking the third consecutive weekly withdrawal and nearly doubling the 2.408 million barrel decline from the previous week. 
 
Meanwhile, the PMI data set showed weakening manufacturing activity in major economies, clouding the outlook for global growth and energy demand.
 
Considering the continued results from CME Group for the crude oil futures market, open interest reversed the multi-session downtrend and increased by about 4.3k contracts on Wednesday. On the same line, the volume maintained choppy activity well and rose by almost 401 thousand contracts.
 
Wednesday's increase in WTI prices was accompanied by an increase in open interest and volume. That said, the continuation of the multi-day recovery will have a further step and could challenge the late June peak at around $72.60 a barrel.
 
Fundamentally, the 1 million barrels per day production cut from Saudi Arabia and 500,000 barrels per day from Russia have supported WTI crude oil prices to move up further. Then how technically, see the following analysis:
 
Technical Analysis

 
Oil prices in the 1-hour period are trying to move down, needing to pass the support level at 71.43 to reach the next support level at 70.79. Meanwhile, for further bullish bias, oil prices need to cross the resistance level at 72.15 to reach the next resistance level at 73.29.
 
This analysis is a fundamental and technical view used by the author, not a suggestion or invitation. To get more information click on the image below.