The price of Texas intermediate oil (WTI) fell 2.31% this Wednesday and closed at US$79.49 a barrel, thus returning to be below the US$80 barrier that it had reached last week.
At the close of business on the New York Mercantile Exchange (nymex), WTI futures contracts for September delivery were down US$1.88 from the previous day.
According to Edward Moya, an analyst at Oanda, oil prices are falling “because the macroeconomic context is killing confidence”referring to the impact of the decision of the rating agency Fitch.
Fitch Ratings yesterday cut the long-term foreign currency issuer default rating for the US to AA+ from AAA on Tuesday, after placing it in “negative observation” last May due to the impasse on the debt ceiling.
The rating agency referred to the “expected fiscal deterioration” over the next three years and the “increasingly high” debt of the US government among the reasons why it has made the decision.
For her part, the Energy Information Management reported today that US crude inventories fell by more than 17 million barrels in the week ending July 28.
However, gasoline inventories increased by almost 1.5 million barrels, while distillate stocks fell by 800,000 barrels.
On the other hand, natural gas futures contracts for September were down US$0.08, up to US$2.47, and gasoline futures due the same month were down US$0.09, down to US$2.77.