WTI oil futures are back above the three digit mark again and closing in on $103 a barrel as plans connect US oil supplies from Cushing to the Gulf Coast refineries looks set to narrow the spread between WTI crude against Brent oil prices. Latest WTI Oil Price US Light crude oil futures for December 2011 delivery was trading at $102.73 a barrel, 07.10 GMT this morning in electronic trading on the NYMEX. The US oil contract surged 3 percent higher yesterday, to close at $102.60. Seaway Pipeline Feeding the jump in WTI oil prices was Enbridge’s acquisition of the Seaway Pipeline from ConocoPhillips and its announcement that it would reverse the pipeline’s direction, easing oversupply caused by a bottleneck in Cushing, the American price point for crude oil. Reversing the Seaway Pipeline would bring an additional 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day to the Gulf Coast, where ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, and others have refineries, Enbridge said. US oil’s sharp rise yesterday reflects the expected shift in Cushing’s limited capacity to move crude oil to major refiners, many of which are located on the Gulf Coast. Oversupply at Cushing is one of the major factors behind the spread between US oil prices and Brent oil prices, which hit $28 earlier this year. Global Oil Supply The other factor moving oil prices are ongoing concerns about potential disruptions to critical world oil supplies, including unrest in the key oil producing areas of the Middle East and Africa. Crude oil supplies are also tightening in the US with storage levels currently 6 percent lower than their 5 year average.

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