Around 11:45 am, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April, dropped 0.21% to 83.89 dollars.
Oil prices swung between gains and losses on Tuesday, caught between expectations of a recovery in Chinese demand and worries regarding the global economy.
Around 10:45 a.m. GMT (11:45 a.m. CET), a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April, fell 0.21% to 83.89 dollars.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in March, which is the last trading day, rose 0.93% to 77.05 dollars.
“There is definitely more optimism around the Chinese economy, which will drive demand this year,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at Oanda.
“But at the same time, sentiment is cooling on the global economy, as interest rates are expected to be a bit higher than expected,” the analyst continued.
China, the world’s largest importer of crude, has abandoned zero-Covid since December, a very strict health policy that was stifling its economy.
But since the reopening, the country has been plagued by high levels of Covid-19 contamination.
And if “general expectations of an increase in Chinese imports of crude oil this year” have been exerting upward pressure on prices for several months, “there has been no relevant fresh news” for the moment, recalls Tamas Varga from PVM Energy.
Investors are still waiting for concrete signs of a recovery in crude oil consumption.
The oil market is also worried regarding the state of the global economy, directly linked to geopolitical risk and the Ukrainian crisis.
“The new source of unpredictability has been embodied in inflation fears,” says Mr. Varga, noting that the majority of major central banks around the world continue to raise their policy rates in an attempt to curb the runaway rise. consumer prices.
According to the analyst, however, it seems increasingly plausible that the global economy will avoid recession, which should improve the overall demand outlook.
