Crude posted a fourth straight weekly drop amid concerns over how significantly US-China trade tensions will affect demand.
Futures closed 1.3 percent lower Friday amid low-volume trading.
Concerns over global trade continue to weigh on investor sentiment, with US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell saying earlier this month that trade barriers threaten productivity and wages, while BlackRock Inc boss Larry Fink said that intensifying tensions could spur a broad market downturn.
We are seeing “an underlying concern especially about demand growth and worries about what could happen on the global trade issue,” Tradition Energy market research manager Gene McGillian said. “Now, with the uncertainty coming from our [the US] president’s administration and his trade policy, part of the demand growth picture is being brought under the spotlight.”
The US benchmark crude is poised for the biggest monthly decline in two years as a trade battle between the US and China is showing no signs of easing, even after US President Donald Trump made peace with the EU.
Meanwhile, the US oil rig count rose for the first time in three weeks, Baker Hughes data showed on Friday.
Investors are also waiting to see how much OPEC ends up raising production.
Prices rebounded somewhat in the latter part of the week after two Saudi Arabian vessels belonging to the Saudi National Shipping Co, each with a capacity of 2 million barrels of oil, were attacked by Yemeni Houthi militia.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, off the shores of Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea, connects the Red Sea with the Arabian Sea and is one of the world’s major waterways for crude oil and other petroleum products.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for September delivery slid US$0.92 to settle at US$68.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but was up 0.8 percent for the week. Total volume traded was 40 percent below the 100-day average.
Brent for September settlement slipped US$0.25 to end the session at US$74.29 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract was up 1.7 percent for the week.
The global benchmark was at a US$5.60 premium to WTI.
Talks of the trade war dominated discussions during the G20 nations summit last weekend as Trump prepares to slap tariffs on US$500 billion of Chinese goods.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 warned of risks, including financial vulnerability as well as structurally weak growth, according to a statement published by the group after their two-day summit in Buenos Aires.
Oil market news:
‧ Gasoline futures settled little changed at US$2.1619 a gallon. Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp followed divergent paths in reporting second-quarter earnings, and investors took note. They gave a nod of approval to Chevron’s US$3 billion stock buyback announcement, and punished Exxon for reporting inferior results with no plans for a payout.
‧ Money managers boosted bullish ICE Brent crude oil bets by 14,395 net-long positions to 367,640, weekly ICE Futures Europe data on futures and options show.
‧ BP PLC said that it will pick up 33,600 hectares in the US Permian Basin in its announcement for the US$10.5 billion purchase of shale assets from BHP Billiton Ltd.
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