Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The international benchmark, Brent crude, reached the $25 per barrel region on Wednesday, recording its biggest-ever quarterly and monthly losses in history.
The oil market, impacted heavily by COVID-19, has led governments to restrict movements, causing drop in demand for the commodity to crash prices.
Yesterday, the Brent crude traded down by 2..54 percent or 67 cents to $25.68, while the United States West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude appreciated by 4.20 percent or 86 cent to $21.34 per barrel.
Both benchmarks lost roughly two-thirds of their value in the first quarter of the year with March accounting for about 55 percent of the losses.
The Brent fell 66 percent throughout the total months of January to March and 55 percent alone in March, the worst quarterly and monthly percentage declines on record.
Oil seems to be making attempts to make some recoveries after US President, Mr Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Mr Vladimir Putin, agreed to talks concerning stabilising the energy markets on Tuesday.
Mr Trump said he would join Saudi Arabia and Russia, if need be, to discuss the sharp fall in oil prices resulting from a price war between the two countries.
But this does not look possible as Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has made it clear that it remains at loggerheads with Russia, which had allied with OPEC to curb output for more than three years beginning in late 2016.
The Kingdom has announced plan to boost oil exports to 10.6 million barrels per day (bpd) from May, just as global consumption crashes due to the coronavirus while following the expiration of the OPEC+ deal, Russia said it doesn’t plan to increase output because it’s not profitable to do so, a Russian government official told Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Oil prices further came under additional pressure on Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported domestic oil stockpiles soared by 13.8 million barrels, more than triple the estimate for an increase of 4 million.
Still, the increase adds to the glut that many believe in coming weeks and months will fill all storage to the brim with supply of cheap oil as the spread of the coronavirus continues to affect economies all around the world.
