New York.– The price of Texas intermediate oil (WTI) opened this Monday with a loss of 1%, up to 79.28 dollars a barrel, thus continuing the trend of last week due to fears that the demand for black gold will be seen hit by coronavirus spikes in China – the main consumer of crude – and the strength of the US dollar.
As of 9:01 a.m. New York time (1401 GMT), WTI futures contracts for December delivery, which ends today, were down 80 cents from the previous day’s close.
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US crude fell sharply last week. It ended four of the five sessions in the red and closed the week down 9.68%.
China, which applies a severe policy of “zero tolerance” towards the new coronavirus, in recent months it has suffered waves of outbreaks attributed to the omicron variant that have caused record numbers of infections not seen since the start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020.
“Oil markets came under pressure last week due to rising Covid cases in China, casting doubt on the government’s recently announced plans to ease restrictions, as well as disappointing economic data in Europe and the US. USA”, points out the analyst of The Sevens Report, Tom Essaye.
Essaye adds that economic concerns are becoming a dominating and bearish influence on markets as growth and price data were net negative last week.
