By Adedapo Adesanya
Oil prices continued to fall on Thursday as events on the political scene further brought about continuous fall for major oil futures on the global market.
Prices of the commodity started to decline further on the back of a media report that there could be no chance of a U.S.-China trade deal following a meeting of the OPEC+ alliance, which yielded no decision on deepening crude supply cuts.
This led to a drop for Brent crude which fell to $60 per barrel yesterday after dropping 35 Cents or 0.58 percent. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also dropped lower. In its case, it went down to the $55 mark after it lost 62 Cents or 1.11 percent to trade at $55.13 per barrel.
However, the OPEC Basket saw green yesterday after appreciating by 74 Cents or 1.19 percent to trade at $62.74 per barrel.
Reports showed that oil was pressured further after the European Central Bank (ECB) cut its deposit rate to a record low 0.5 percent from 0.4 percent and disclosed that it would restart bond purchases of 20 billion euros in December to allow for growth in the euro zone.
Also, oil futures extended their losses after a senior White House official denied a Bloomberg News report that the United States was considering a temporary trade agreement with China.
Another factor that led to the bearish prices was the International Energy Agency (IEA) report which projected that rising U.S. Oil output would make balancing the market very difficult in 2020.
Dipo Olowookere