Oil Prices Are on Course for Another Weekly Slump

Crude oil prices were on track to book their second consecutive weekly loss as markets reel from Trump’s tariff offensive, although they stabilized somewhat after the U.S. president announced a 90-day pause on the levies.

At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $63.01 per barrel, with West Texas Intermediate at $59.74 per barrel. The weekly change in the prices is not very radical, compared with last week’s drop, thanks to the pause that Trump took markets by surprise with on Thursday. The weekly loss for Brent crude, according to Reuters, will be 4% and the loss for WTI is estimated at 3.8%. Last week, both benchmarks shed as much as 11%.

‘;
document.write(write_html);
}

“While the pause offers some relief to markets, there’s still plenty of uncertainty on the trade front,” ING commodity analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note earlier today. “This uncertainty is still likely to drag on global growth, which is clearly a concern for oil demand. Still, conditions are not looking as bad as they were just a few days ago.”

The main factor exerting pressure on oil prices continues to be fear of a global recession, as the effect of the tariff pause is yet to be processed by market players fully. ANZ analysts have estimated that if global economic growth slows to below 3%, oil consumption will shed 1%.

For now, the situation remains uncertain, with both the United States and China signaling they were willing to negotiate a deal but keeping the pressure on the other, too. China’s latest retaliatory move after Trump imposed more tariffs on Chinese imports was to restrict imports of Hollywood movies. The move appears to be largely symbolic, according to analysts, because Hollywood productions have been generating diminishing returns in China over the past few years, Reuters reported.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com