Oil’s rally may founder as prices approach a key resistance point, sending crude back toward $45 a dollar, consultant JBC Energy GmbH said, referring to a so- called Fibonacci chart. The resistance will come at $62.65, equivalent to 38.2 percent of crude’s 10-year rally between 1998 and 2008, JBC Energy said. The threshold comes from the ratio between numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. Sometimes known as the golden mean, the ratio is used to find support or resistance as prices retrace rallies or declines between previous highs and lows. “Prices will fall to $45 before they rise in the second half of the year to $68,” JBC’s Vienna-based Chief Executive Officer Johannes Benigni said in a telephone interview. “The recovery was too early, and as oil market fundamentals look extremely bad a correction is expected.” Crude oil futures have gained 38 percent this year in New York on optimism a global economic recovery will revive energy demand. Oil for July last traded at $61.58 a barrel at 8:18 a.m. in London. The $62.65 mark identified by Benigni corresponds to 38.2 percent of crude’s climb from $10.35 in December 1998 to an all- time high of $147.27 last July. A short-term pull-back to around $45 a barrel is likely as equity markets correct lower and above-average fuel inventories weigh on prices, Benigni said. Still, prices will be supported against further declines around the highest point they reached during the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War, he added. Oil rose as high as $41.15 a barrel on Oct. 1990 as the U.S. prepared its military response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Oil will rebound in the second half of the year as demand revives and investors turn to commodities as a hedge against inflation, Benigni added.

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