Oil prices drop by 0.5%

Oil prices dropped by around 0.5% on Monday, with West Texas  Oil (WTI) trading below $72 a barrel and Brent crude below $74 a barrel, amid worries over a slowdown in global oil demand after some countries posted record daily increases and extended lockdown measures over the weekend.

In the US, top health expert Anthony Fauci on Sunday warned of a virus outbreak among the unvaccinated; while the CDC said last week that the Delta variant is one of the most infectious respiratory diseases, accounting for over 83% of sequenced cases in the US.

Traders were also downbeat after Beijing’s crackdown on the misuse of import quotas combined with the impact of high crude prices could see China’s growth in oil imports sink to the lowest in two decades this year.

On top of that, OPEC+ decided last week to increase crude production by 400,000 barrels per day monthly starting August 2021 until phasing out the 5.8 million bpd production adjustment.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark for US crude is the world’s most actively traded commodity.

Source: Trading Economics