• Prices of the WTI adds to Thursday’s losses on Friday.
• Weekly gains appear capped near $72.00 per barrel.
• Driller Baker Hughes will report on the weekly drilling activity later.

Prices of the barrel of the American benchmark for the sweet light crude oil add to Thursday’s pullback and revisit the sub-$67.00 region at the end of the week, or 3-day lows.

WTI weaker on banking turmoil, strong dollar

In fact, banking concerns and rising jitters on a potential contagion continue to weigh on traders’ sentiment and underpin at the same time the daily retracement.

Also playing against the commodity appears the marked bounce in the greenback in combination with recent news that the Biden administration could delay until the next year its restocking of oil inventories.

Later in the session, Baker Hughes will publish its usual weekly report on US oil rig count in the week to March 24.

WTI significant levels

At the moment the barrel of WTI is down 0.94% at $68.81 and a breach of $64.41 (2023 low March 20) would aim for $61.76 (monthly low August 23 2021) and then $61.58 (monthly low May 21 2021). On the upside, the next hurdle is located at $71.63 (weekly high March 23) followed by $76.33 (55-day SMA) and finally $80.90 (monthly high March 7).