On Tuesday, oil prices steadied after a US official’s comment creating havoc in the market and raised concern about the prospect of US and China trade relationship.
By 06.49 GMT, Brent crude oil futures went down by 0.2% or 10 cents to USD42.98/barrel and US WTI contracted by 0.4% or 16 cents at USD40.57/barrel. Previously, both benchmarks slumped to the session lows to USD42.21/barrel and USD39.76/barrel respectively.
Earlier in the day, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s comment that the US-China’s hard-won deal was over spooked the market. However, the statement was quickly being brushed away.
US President Donald Trump later stated that the agreement was fully intact, which helped to calm the wrecked market.
US-China’s relationship has again turned sour as the US kept accusing China to be intransparent regarding the outbreak of coronavirus. Other than that, Beijing is being viewed as lagging in quickly make up for the shortfall with their promises of US agricultural goods purchases.
Several other factors, however, did prevent the prices to slump fully.
The tensions in the Middle East involving Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement and Saudi Arabia, the oil and gas drillers in the US and Canada cutting rig counts to a record low, and the economic restarting activity in many US states and countries all over the world are supporting the prices.
According to Baker Hughes, in the week ended June 19, US oil rigs count fell by 10 to 189 units. It was the lowest reading since June 2009.
Another breath of fresh air to the oil market was the increase in oil price forecast for 2020 from Bank of America (BofA) Global Research. Brent is estimated to average at USD43.7/barrel this year, from the prior expectation of USD37/barrel.
Tags: AlwaysFree,Americas,Crude Oil,English,Middle East,Saudi Arabia,US,World
Published on June 23, 2020 4:21 PM (GMT+8)Last Updated on June 23, 2020 4:21 PM (GMT+8)
