Oil all set to post yearly gains in excess of 45%

WTI crude oil once again failed to sustain its move above $54.00 mark and has accelerated the rejection move in the past hour.

Currently trading around $53.70-75 region, testing session lows, the black gold initially gained some traction in wake of Thursday's official EIA report that showed lower-than-expected rise in the US crude stockpiles. Moreover, US Dollar weakness across the board was also seen boosting demand for dollar-denominated commodities - like oil.

Oil prices, however, failed to sustain early gains and turned lower as investors seemed inclined to unwind their bullish positions ahead of an extended New Year's weekend. Global oil markets will remain closed on Monday in observance of New Year's Day. 

Nevertheless, the landmark oil production cut agreement between OPEC-cartel and 11 non-OPEC producers had already set the stage for the commodity to head for yearly gains of around 45%, its biggest annual surge since 2009.

Market players would now be interest to see the production reports for the first few month of 2017, which if shows that the participating countries are complying with the assigned production quotas, and that the pact is fully implemented successfully, should push oil prices further higher in 2017.