The price of Texas intermediate oil (WTI) opened this Friday with a drop of 1.26% and stood at 87.42 dollars a barrel, thus continuing this week’s downward trend due to fears of the impact of inflation in economic growth and demand for black gold.
At 09:00 New York local time (13:00 GMT), WTI futures contracts for delivery in September were down $1.12 from the close of the previous session.
Oil losses accelerated this week after US data showed crude and gasoline stockpiles rose.
US crude oil inventories unexpectedly rose last week due to falling exports and refinery downsizing.
For its part, the OPEC+ oil alliance, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, slightly increased its supply for the month of September to 100,000 barrels per day.
“Looking ahead, investors are becoming less concerned about supply issues related to the Russia-Ukraine war and are instead starting to see demand metrics deteriorate amid a sizeable increase in recession calls,” says the president of the firm Seven Reports, Tom Essaye, in a note.
Essaye also stresses that with US gasoline demand 9% below last year’s levels and even lower than in the summer of 2020 “it is clear that prices above $100 a barrel They are not sustainable.”