Singapore, March 10 (Reuters) – The impact of oil prices on U.S. import tariffs on global economic growth and fuel demand and the increase in output from OPEC producers, interest in riskier assets, is the impact on global economic growth and fuel demand on Monday.
Brent crude fell 25 cents, or 0.4%, to $70.11 a barrel after falling 90 cents on Friday. The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude closed 68 cents higher, down 28 cents a barrel after a mid-term higher of 68 cents, or 0.4%.
WTI fell for the seventh straight week, the longest winning streak since November 2023, while Brent went bankrupt for the third straight week after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on major Canadian oil suppliers Canada and Mexico, while taxing Chinese goods. China retaliated against the United States and Canada for agricultural products tariffs.
“Last week, U.S. tariff uncertainty, U.S. growth issues, potential increase in U.S. sanctions on Russia and the possibility that OPEC chooses to increase output, the trade-offs on crude oil were reduced,” IG analyst Tony Sycamore said in a client notes.
“Nevertheless, due to a lot of bad news, we expect weekly support to be around $65/$62, and we will hold the company until the recovery returns to $72.00,” he said, referring to the WTI price.
Oil prices suffered some losses on Friday if the U.S. would increase sanctions on Russia, if the latter fails to cease fire with Ukraine.
The United States is also looking at ways to reduce sanctions in Russia’s energy sector if Russia agrees to end the war with Ukraine, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Meanwhile, organizations including oil exporters and allies (including Russia collectively referred to as OPEC) said they will start oil production from April.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Friday that OPEC could reverse the decision amid a market imbalance.
Last week, Trump said he wanted to reach a deal with OPEC member Iran to prevent the latter from seeking nuclear weapons – although Iran said it did not seek such weapons.
A State Department spokesman said Trump is conducting a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, according to which the U.S. canceled a waiver on Saturday to allow Iraq to pay electricity to Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that his country will not be bullied. (Report from Florence Tan; Editor of Christopher Cushing)
