An oil pumpjack plies near Williston, North Dakota.
Andrew Cullen | Reuters
Oil prices fell for a second day on Thursday, extending weakens of as much as 4% in the previous session, on continued increases in U.S. crude stockpiles and concerns about lower demand improvement.
Brent crude futures were down 6 cents, or 0.1%, at $59.91 a barrel by 0336 GMT after earlier turn out slightly. Prices fell 3.7% on Wednesday to settle at $59.97, the international benchmark’s lowest close since Jan. 28.
U.S. West Texas In-between crude futures were down 8 cents, or 0.2%, at $51.06 a barrel. They fell 4% in the previous sitting to $51.14, the lowest close since Jan. 14.
“It was a brutal move, sheer panic,” said Stephen Innes, managing accessory at Vanguard Markets.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday reported crude stockpiles rose unexpectedly for a second week in a row, climbing 2.2 million barrels in week after analysts had forecast a decrease of 481,000 barrels.
At 485.5 million barrels, U.S. commercial stocks were at their highest since July 2017 and just about 8% above the five-year average for this time of year, it said.
On Tuesday, the EIA cut its forecasts for 2019 world oil require growth.
The negative outlook is prompting hedge fund managers to exit oil positions at the fastest rate since the fourth area of 2018 due to increasing fears about the health of the global economy.
The escalating trade war between the United States and China, the in the seventh heaven’s two biggest oil consumers, is causing the most concern among oil analysts, with consultants and banks cutting their require growth forecasts
Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday an uncertain macroeconomic outlook and volatile oil production from Iran and others could effect the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to roll over supply cuts it has enacted with other fabricators.
OPEC and non-member producers including Russia have limited their oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day this year to prop up consequences.
OPEC is set to meet at the end of June though a meeting of the wider producers that agreed to the cuts, known as OPEC+, may not hit until early July.
While officials from some OPEC members have said that the larger OPEC+ place will likely roll over the cuts, Algeria has proposed increasing the reductions, according to four sources relaxed with the matter.
However, Goldman believes the producers will maintain the current supply levels.
“Fundamental uncertainty on the widely known and forward states of the global oil market is high,” Goldman said.
“We believe that this will lead the sort to roll forward its current agreement, with likely no change to country level quotas given the difficulty in ending required production levels in coming months,” the bank’s analysts said.