Brent falls $2.32 to $100.46 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude loses $2.37
Oil prices slid more than $2 a barrel on Monday, following a second consecutive weekly decline after world consumers announced plans to release a record volume of crude and oil products from strategic stocks and as China lockdowns continue.
The market has been watching developments in China, where authorities have kept Shanghai, a city of 26-million people, locked down under its “zero tolerance” policy for Covid-19. China is the world's biggest oil importer. “Fears are rising now that if China's Omicron wave spreads to other cities, its zero-Covid-19 policy will see mass extended lockdowns that negatively affect industrial output and domestic consumption,” he added.
“We expect these Strategic Petroleum Reserve volumes — about 273-million barrels in total and 1.3-million barrels per day over the next six months — to go a long way in the short term towards offsetting the 1 mbd of Russian oil supply we expect to remain permanently offline,” said JPMorgan analysts in a note.