The price of Texas intermediate oil (WTI) closed in negative again this Thursday, with a drop of 3.66%, to 86.27 dollars a barrel, which adds to two consecutive days of falls due to fears of a possible global recession that affects the demand.
At the end of operations on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the WTI futures contracts for delivery in October subtracted 3.28 dollars from the previous close.
This Thursday is the lowest price of a barrel of Texas in the last two weeks.
Thus, the price of the US reference crude oil is increasingly far from 100 dollars after starting this week with a strong rebound of 4.2% attributed then to the possible cuts by OPEC + sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the political tensions in Libya and Iraq, a rebound that turned out to be exceptional.
Last Tuesday’s sharp drop of -5.5% erased all the gains as worries about high inflation and a possible recession that threatens to reduce the demand for fuel prevail, and that trend has only taken hold.
Today, the confinement imposed by the Chinese Government in the city of Chengdu (21 million inhabitants) due to the spread of covid-19 has multiplied alarms about a drop in demand for crude oil by the Asian giant, according to the portal’s interpretation Marketwatch.
In addition, inflation is near double-digit territory in many of the world’s largest economies, so many central banks are turning to more aggressive interest rate hikes, which could slow economic growth and hit demand. made out of fuel.
The natural gas market fared better, gaining 10 cents (+1.13%) to $9.23 (+1.13%), while gasoline lost five cents to $2.37 a gallon.