I made a quick graph that shows cftc.gov data on producer and swap dealer positions, in relation to the WTI crude oil price. As you can also see, I made som comments:

There are two distinct strategy changes in the BigBank&Oil trading pattern occuring first in september 2014 when they stopped buying the price decline, and secondly in march 2015 when the actively intervened and started buying again at $40-$45 range. Of course these might mean nothing, but it seems that they for some reason in late september decided to abandon their previous strategy and move the oil price target range from $80-$100 to $40-$60, where they will probably keep it from now on until further notice …

It’s also interesting to notice that since they had such a huge short position to begin with they’ve pocketed a staggering $30 billion in profits since july 2014 of which $8 billion is realized and the rest is still on the books! On April 14 they were still short 377 thousand contracts, so the certainly don’t believe that the price is going up anytime shortly …