Oil Prices Nosedive to Their Lowest Since July as Riyadh Cuts Crude Sales Price Tags for Asia

Last week, the US Energy Information Administration reported a hefty weekly drop in American crude supplies, along with a fall of at least four million barrels in the country’s gasoline inventories. This, however, failed to provide an increase in oil prices amid plummeting demand.

Oil prices nosedived to their lowest since late July on Monday as Saudi Arabia made the largest monthly price cuts pertaining to sales of its crude to Asia, Riyadh’s largest regional energy market.

During a European trading session at about 5:50 GMT, the global benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 dropped by 1.4% to $42.04 per barrel, declining 62 cents for a fourth straight day in its most protracted slide since April’s historic oil price collapse.

The developments came a few days after the US Energy Information Administration reported a 9.4-million-barrel weekly drop in American crude supplies, as well as a fall of 4.3 million barrels in gasoline inventories, something that, however, failed to add to stirring oil prices amid weak demand.

The Monday drop followed a previous fall in oil prices after reports about oversupply in US crude earlier in June.

This, in turn, was preceded by the adoption of an OPEC*+ agreement that stipulated global oil production cuts entering into force on 1 May, a few weeks after US crude prices plunged below zero dollars per barrel in a historic drop that also caused the crash of the global oil market.

The 12 April OPEC+ deal obliged the signatories to reduce crude production by 9.7 million barrels per day in May and June. Thereafter, production will be slashed by 7.7 million barrels per day until the end of 2020, and by 5.8 million barrels daily from January 2021 until April 2022.

*OPEC, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, an energy cartel which includes Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The “+” denotes additional exporters cooperating with OPEC including Russia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, South Sudan, and Sudan.

Sourse: sputniknews.com