US markets ended with contained variations, managing to recover from early losses justified by the sharp fall in oil and the weakness of the US markets. The Dow Jones was losing 266 points and closed with a rise of 53 points. Oil price suffered a selling pressure, with investors showing their disappointment at the fact that Saudi Arabia eliminate the possibility of a cut in production and some skepticism regarding the freeze on production capacity to balance the relationship demand / supply . The session key moment occurred when the Department of Energy revealed that the oil reserves in the US rose by 3.5 million barrels last week compared to the envisaged increase of 2.42 million. However, the sharp drop in petrol stocks (-1.6 million barrels vs 0.73 M million) contributed to compensate the early fall. Additionally, the Association of American Railroads reported that crude oil transported through this route declined for the third consecutive week, confirming recent evidence that US oil production continues to decline, albeit slowly. Last year, in face of oil price fall, shale oil extraction companies adopted a series of measures in order to protect their business. These measures include the closure of oil wells with lower productivity, reduction in non-operating costs, renegotiation with banks of borrowing and the implementation of financial hedging strategies, which protect the oil price fall. However, at this stage, the potential of reducing costs both financial and non-operating is limited and the use of financial instruments for protection against a further drop of crude oil is very expensive. Thus, in recent months there has a closure of many oil fields, especially smaller ones.
