Skip to main content

Oil drops 15%, extending Monday’s 25% decline

NewsColony
Oil drops 15%, extending Monday’s 25% decline

A worker prepares to lift drills by pulley to the main floor of a drilling rig in the Permian basin.

Brittany Sowacke | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oil prices slid more than 15% during overnight trading, extending Monday’s nearly 25% decline on ongoing fears that storage around the world is rapidly filling.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, slid 15.3%, or $1.96, to trade at $10.82 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude traded 3.8% lower at $19.23 per barrel. On Monday, WTI fell 24.56%, or $4.16, to settle at $12.78 per barrel. International benchmark Brent crude fell 6.76% to settle at $19.99. Each contract is coming off its eighth week of losses in nine weeks.

The coronavirus pandemic has erased as much as a third of global demand for oil, according to some estimates, which has sent prices tumbling to record lows.

“The June contract is falling due to the reality of demand levels being well below current production levels and limited storage options,” Reid Morrison, PwC oil and gas advisory leader, told CNBC. “Choppiness in the markets will be significant as economies deal with lockdowns and returning to normal,” he added.

Prices were also pressured on Monday after the United States Oil Fund, which trades under the ticker ‘USO’ and is popular with retail investors, said it would sell all of its contracts for June delivery beginning Monday, in favor of longer-term contracts.

“The move [by the USO] is a recognition of the bleak prospects for the US oil sector in May and June,” said Cailin Birch, global economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. 

As demand drops more and more producers have announced production cuts. But some believe it won’t be fast enough to combat the unprecedented fall-off in demand from the pandemic.

Earlier in April, OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed to a record production cut that will take 9.7 million barrels per day off the market beginning Friday, while Exxon and Chevron are among the U.S.-based companies that have scaled back operations. 

But sill, Birch noted that even as crude prices have dropped U.S. oil production held at a record level in the first quarter of 2020, “filling up almost all available storage capacity.”

WTI and Brent are both on pace for their fourth straight month of losses for the first time since 2017.

Subscribe to CNBC PRO for exclusive insights and analysis, and live business day programming from around the world.

Source: Cnbc

The post Oil drops 15%, extending Monday’s 25% decline appeared first on NewsColony.
NewsColony



from WordPress https://ift.tt/359nR7L

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Volunteers book hotel room for homeless man with SingapoRediscovers vouchers

NewsColony Volunteers book hotel room for homeless man with SingapoRediscovers vouchers © The Independent Singapore Singapore — A group of volunteers from the Mummy Yummy Singapore welfare organisation donated their SingapoRediscovers Vouchers to book a hotel room for a homeless man. The man, who was identified as Jayden, did not have a place to live while waiting for the Housing Board (HDB) to allocate him a rental flat. In a Facebook post on Mummy Yummy Singapore’s page on Wednesday (Dec 16), the volunteers said: “We used our $100 Rediscover Singapore vouchers to redeem hotel stay for him and successfully booked 9 days worth of stay at 3 days per voucher.” They added that they were unable to book a longer stay because of higher hotel rates over Christmas and New Year. The volunteers hoped that they would be able to bridge Jayden’s stay until he got a flat. “Thanks our government for giving us these vouchers which in return we can put them to good use for people in need,” th...

Chinese stars moonlighting as live-streamers

NewsColony Chinese stars moonlighting as live-streamers Li JIaqi and Yang Mi joined forces to sell products online during coronavirus, blurring the boundaries between conventional celebrities and live streamers. Photo: @TrendingWeibo/Twitter The line between Chinese celebrities and live streamers continues to blur these days. Luxury brands are expanding their pool of friend-of-the-brand endorsements with top live streamers – Louis Vuitton, for example, tapped both actress Song Jia and “lipstick king” live streamer Li Jiaqi for its much anticipated 520 Chinese Valentine’s Day campaign. Celebrities, actors and singers are jumping on the bandwagon to test out their commercial values on e-commerce platforms, with Yang Mi, Li Xiaolu and Michelle Ye Xuan just a few of the screen stars moonlighting on live streaming portals including Taobao, TikTok and Red Book. So why are Chinese celebrities so eager to embrace the battlefield of live streaming e-commerce, and how are they getting on so...

Players who breached social-distancing rules put NRL restart at risk, Federal Sport Minister says

NewsColony Players who breached social-distancing rules put NRL restart at risk, Federal Sport Minister says NRL players guilty of breaking social-distancing laws have put the league’s planned return to action at risk, according to the Federal Sport Minister. Key points: The NRL wants to restart its 2020 season — suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic — on May 28 However the league has had to deal players flouting social-distancing rules The National Cabinet will meet on Friday to discuss its approach to resuming elite and community sport The league’s bold bid to resume its competition copped a major blow this week when three of its stars were fined for flouting social-distancing rules . Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr ($50,000 each) and Nathan Cleary ($10,000) were also slapped with suspended fines by the NRL for bringing the game into disrepute. The incidents gave critics ammunition to question the league’s ability to follow strict protocol measures required to relau...