A barrel of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery lost 3.84% to 82.19 dollars.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday in response to a gloomy outlook for demand and speculation that a greater than expected use of US strategic reserves, while natural gas continued to decline in Europe.
Around 3:40 p.m. GMT (5:40 p.m. CET), a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in December yielded 3.01% to 88.86 dollars.
A barrel of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery lost 3.84% to 82.19 dollars.
“Crude oil prices eased shortly following US markets opened, slipping to two-week lows, despite OPEC+ reiterating its unanimity to cut production earlier this month,” Michael Hewson said. , from CMC Markets.
The members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their partners (OPEC+) had indeed decided to slash their production quotas at their last meeting in early October, to stop the fall in prices, undermined by fears of recessions.
“There is nothing political in the decisions we make within OPEC+,” Emirati Energy Minister Souhail al-Mazrouei repeated to journalists on Tuesday.
“The question now is how the United States will react,” said Commerzbank.
According to analysts, the possibility of a new recourse to the strategic oil reserves of the United States pulls prices down, “the country seeking to compensate for the production cuts announced by OPEC +”, indicates Michael Hewson.
The US administration is preparing, according to the Bloomberg agency, to draw 10 to 15 million barrels of oil more than expected from its strategic reserves.
Concerns regarding the outlook for demand are also weighing on crude prices, “as markets analyze the decision (Monday) by the Chinese authorities to postpone the publication of their September economic data”, adds the analyst. A postponement which “does not reflect a successful economy”, he judges.
Natural gas continued to decline, with the Dutch TTF futures contract, the benchmark for natural gas in Europe, trading at 111.50 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) following falling to 107.295 euros, its lowest level since end of June.
“These encouraging developments are mainly due to an influx of very robust and resilient liquid natural gas from the United States, as well as the recent completion” of the Greek-Bulgarian Sofia gas pipeline, which began operation in October, two elements which contribute to emancipate Europe from Russian gas, explains Alex Fierro, broker at Marex.