The intermediate oil price of Texas (WTI) It fell 7.9% this Tuesday and closed at $95.84 due to the strength of the dollar and the prospect of weaker demand, once again losing the psychological barrier of $100.
At the end of the operations in the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex)WTI futures contracts for delivery in August lost $8.25 from the previous close.
Last week the price of black gold was also marked by volatility and fell below the psychological barrier of 100 dollars, although it ended the week close to 105 dollars.
“Markets remain divided between fears of a recession in USA, Europe and Chinawhich hinder growth and, consequently, oil consumption, and the reality in which the supply and demand of the market is still very tight, ”said Oanda analyst Jeffrey Halley today.
The new Chinese restrictive measures in the face of the appearance of new cases of covid-19 and that threaten to reduce demand are the new factor that has been flying over the markets since Monday.
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China, which applies a severe policy of “zero tolerance” towards the coronavirus, it has suffered in the last three months a wave of outbreaks attributed to the omicron variant that has caused record numbers of infections not seen since the start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020.
Likewise, the news that Iran could send armed drones to Russia, which could imply a new obstacle to reaching a nuclear agreement, appears on the horizon as another element that makes the price of crude oil more expensive, since it would imply that Iranian oil would still not enter freely on the market.
Also, the dollar index, which measures the performance of the US currency against six other currencies, rose 0.5% to 108.51, according to CNBC.
That gain put the euro on the brink of parity with the dollar, as recession fears mount in Europe.
For its part, the price of natural gas futures contracts for August subtracted 26 cents from the dollar, to 6.16 dollars, and that of gasoline futures with expiration the same month subtracted 19 cents, to 3.26 dollars the gallon.
