Crude oil futures settle at 113.23.

 Crude oil   futures  settle at $113.23. That’s up $1.02 or 0.91%. That is for the June contract which goes off the board today.

The July contract meanwhile is closing up $0.39 at $110.28.

Norway today announced that April preliminary oil production fell to 1.66 million barrels per day vs. expectations 1.86 million barrels per day. The decline is likely due to oil field maintenance work. Nevertheless any disruption oil production is a concern.

The Baker Hughes recount came in decent with 13 new oil rigs up to 576 and total rigs up 14 to 728.

For the week, last week the price closed at $110.49. With the July contract closing at $110.28, the gain for the week is $0.21 or 0.19%.

Technically, the price moved up to test a topside trend line during Monday and Tuesday’s trade, but could not sustain momentum and rotated back to the downside. The move lower fell back below the early May high price at $111.37. The high price today reached $111.04. It will take a move above that level to increase the bullish bias with the topside trend line as a target.

On the downside the 38.2% retracement $104.50 followed by the rising lower trendline (at $100.25 currently) are downside targets going forward.