MELBOURNE – Oil prices fell for a fourth day on Thursday on concerns that new COVID curbs in China, the world’s biggest crude importer, will impact fuel demand.
Brent crude futures fell 34 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $92.31 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 31 cents at $85.52 a barrel.
Brent prices have dropped more than 6 percent so far this week, while WTI is down more than 7 percent.
The manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, a city of 19 million people, on Thursday reported more than 2,000 new cases for Nov. 9, the third day above that level, in the city’s worst outbreak so far. Millions of residents were told to get tested for COVID-19 on Wednesday, and one city district has been locked down, as local cases across China reached their highest since April 30.
Adding to market gloom was a big build in US crude inventories reported on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately for oil bulls, that was only the tip of the iceberg, as a run of bearish economic headlines put China in the headlights … as a spike in local COVID cases weighs like an anvil on oil markets,” SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes said in a note.
Crude oil stockpiles rose by 3.9 million barrels last week, the US Energy Information Administration said, taking inventories to their highest since July 2021.
However, gasoline inventories fell by 900,000 barrels to their lowest since November 2014 and distillate stockpiles fell by 500,000 barrels. – Reuters
