(BFM Bourse) – Oil prices are at their lowest since June, undermined by the prospect of oversupply of crude and the gloomy global economic outlook.
The fall in oil prices accelerated on Tuesday, weighed down by fears of an oversupply of crude and the gloomy global economic outlook.
Around 7:00 p.m., the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in February, lost 3.85% to $73.10.
Concerns about Chinese demand
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in January, fell 4% to $68.45. The two global crude oil benchmarks were at their lowest level since the end of June.
“Datas [de l’agence Bloomberg] revealed that the weekly average of Russia’s crude exports had reached levels not seen since the beginning of July,” Lukman Otunuga, analyst at FXTM, told AFP.
At the same time, “with US production still high and concerns about the health of the Chinese economy, the short-term demand outlook seems uncertain,” underlines James Harte, analyst at Tickmill.
Investors are worried that deflation will accelerate in China in November, due to falling energy and food prices, according to official data released on Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
For Tamas Varga, this is a “sign of sluggish demand from the world’s second largest economy”. The two oil benchmarks have lost between 25% and 28% since their highs of the year, reached at the end of September, when Brent was close to $100 per barrel.
“The ‘recent’ collapse in oil prices has been driven by concerns about oversupply,” says James Harte.
At the same time, prices were also put under pressure “by the latest inflation data in the United States, which boosted expectations regarding the maintenance of interest rates by the Fed (American Federal Reserve) for a longer period. long”, notes Lukman Otunuga.
(With AFP)
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