The spot WTI crude oil price, traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, tumbled 6.76% to close at U.S. $52.68 per barrel on Monday after Greece’s leftist Tsipras government won the referendum with a “No” vote on Sunday. Last week, the WTI crude price plunged 5.28% after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday that the commercial crude-oil inventories in the U.S. rose by 2.4 million barrels in the week ended June 26. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a decline of 1.2 million barrels. Baker Hughes [NYSE:BHI], the U.S. largest oilfield services company, said on Thursday that the number of active oil drilling rigs climbed by 12 to 640, the first gain since December.

Although the June 30 deadline for the Iran nuclear deal has come and gone, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that it was still possible to reach an agreement by Tuesday, which would enable the Obama administration to submit the deal to Congress this week, for a 30-day review period. If a deal is reached, Iran could soon start dumping millions of barrels of oil into the global market, sending the WTI crude oil price tumbling back to $50 per barrel or lower. As reported by MarketWatch, Iran has at least 34 supertankers full of oil, which is about 50 million barrels or more, ready to be delivered if sanctions are lifted. 

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which has been pumping more than 10 million barrels a day, shows no signs of slowing down and has made it clear that it has no plans to slow production, even if the Iranian oil sanctions are lifted.

As of June 30, there are 473,234 long positions of non-commercial contracts of light sweet crude oil futures, traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by swap dealers and hedge funds, a decrease of about 6,297 long positions week-on-week, according to the Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) each Friday. This is compared to about 419,037 short positions, an increase of about 4,440 short positions week-on-week where light sweet crude oil contracts are traded in units of 1,000 barrels.

Technically, the WTI crude oil price has been trading at the top of the ascending broadening wedge since May. Hedge funds were exiting the crude oil trade last week, sending the crude oil prices down below the lower trendline of the ascending wedge. In an ascending wedge breakdown event, the crude price could head to the U.S. $45.00 a barrel level, or the base of the wedge. There are supports at U.S. $50.55 and U.S. $48.64 a barrel.