Brent prices extend losses and fall below $100 a barrel
Brent crude fell more than 3 percent, crashing below $100 a barrel after its second consecutive weekly decline, pressured by China’s lockdowns and weighed down by a surplus after announced plans to export record volumes of crude and oil products. release strategic stocks.
As crude oil benchmark futures go through wild swings for several weeks, the most since June 2020, global oil markets fell for the second week in a row.
On Monday, benchmark Brent oil fell more than $3, or 3 percent, to $99.63 a barrel, and U.S. crude fell nearly 4 percent to about $95 a barrel.
Last week, Brent was down 1.5 percent and the US West Texas Intermediate 1 percent.
The world’s largest importer has limited the lure of the oil market; China is battling a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, with authorities keeping Shanghai, a city of 26 million, locked under its “zero tolerance” for COVID-19.
In addition, International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries have agreed to release 60 million barrels on top of a 180 million barrel release announced by the US last week to help squeeze prices in a tight market following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the US matching that amount as part of the 180 million barrels release announced in March.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, global crude oil prices have soared, with international benchmark Brent futures hitting a multi-decade high of nearly $140 a barrel last month.
While crude oil costs have fallen from those highs, with benchmark futures contracts falling for the second week in a row, international oil prices had remained above $100 a barrel since Moscow attacked Ukraine.
