Around 5:45 p.m., Brent lost 2.29% to 98.73 dollars and WTI dropped 2.08% to 94.23 dollars.
The price of a barrel of Brent fell below the 100 dollar mark on Thursday, joining the American WTI, weighed down by promises of the release of strategic oil reserves, while China, the first importer of crude oil, faces a resurgence of COVID-19 outbreak.
Around 3:45 p.m. GMT (5:45 p.m. in Paris), Brent from the North Sea, the reference for black gold in Europe, lost 2.29% to 98.73 dollars a barrel, when the American WTI fell by 2.08% to $94.23 a barrel.
The price of a barrel of Brent had not fallen below the symbolic bar of 100 dollars since March 17.
Despite a new round of sanctions imposed on Russia, market attention remains focused on the promise of members of the International Energy Agency (IEA), excluding the United States, to draw 60 million barrels from their reserves emergency.
What contribute “to allay supply concerns”, explains Susannah Streeter, analyst for Hargreaves Lansdown.
This promise comes a week after US President Joe Biden pledged to release an additional 180 million barrels in the coming months.
Since President Biden’s announcement, WTI has lost almost 6%, while Brent has fallen by around 8%.
“In view of these quantities, the previous concerns about the shortage of supply are no longer justified, as also shown by the evolution of prices”, comments Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.
If these initiatives have caused a significant drop in oil prices, “they should not be able to compensate for the expected Russian deficit of 2.5 to 3 million barrels per day”, however warns Tamas Varga.
Meanwhile, “lockdowns in China could offer short-term relief from high prices if consumption declines there and more supply is freed up for use elsewhere,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
Almost all of Shanghai’s 25 million people were confined on Saturday, as China faces its worst outbreak in two years.
What also ballast oil prices, China being a major consumer of crude oil and the demand for black gold could thus suffer.