{"id":4319,"date":"2023-03-18T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roydadnaft.ir\/English\/?p=4319"},"modified":"2023-03-18T15:00:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T15:00:15","slug":"oil-prices-settle-down-post-big-weekly-losses-on-bank-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roydadnaft.ir\/English\/4319\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil prices settle down, post big weekly losses on bank fears"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oil prices settled lower Friday, reversing early gains of more than $1 a barrel as banking sector fears caused both benchmarks to reach their biggest weekly declines in months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brent crude futures settled down by $1.73, or 2.3%, to $72.97 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell $1.61, or 2.4%, at $66.74.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At their session low, both benchmarks were down more than $3. Brent fell nearly by 12% in the week, its biggest weekly fall since December. WTI futures fell 13% since Friday’s close, its biggest since last April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The underlying fundamentals aren’t as terrible as what is being priced in here, but there is concern the oil is not as safe a place as cash or gold,” said John Kilduff, Partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oil prices tracked equity markets lower, dogged by the banking sector crisis and worries about possible recession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three indexes were sharply lower in afternoon trading, with financial stocks\u00a0(.SPNY)\u00a0down the most among the major sectors of the S&P 500 following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank and with trouble at Credit Suisse and First Republic Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices had recovered some ground after\u00a0support measures\u00a0from the European Central Bank and U.S. lenders, but dropped again when SVB Financial Group\u00a0(SIVB.O)\u00a0said it had\u00a0filed for reorganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressure stemmed from “the continued fragile state of the market”, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts still expect constrained global supply to support oil prices in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OPEC+ members attributed\u00a0this week’s price weakness to financial drivers rather than any supply and demand imbalance, adding that they expected the market to stabilise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WTI’s fall this week to less than $70 a barrel for the first time since December 2021 could spur the U.S. government to\u00a0start refilling\u00a0its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, boosting demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And analysts expect China’s demand recovery to add price support, with U.S. crude exports to China in March heading towards their highest in nearly two and a half years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia and Russia in a meeting on Thursday affirmed their commitment to OPEC+’s decision last October to cut production targets by two million barrels per day until the end of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An OPEC+ monitoring panel is due to meet on Apr. 3.<\/p>\n

Updated on