Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Crude oil prices continued its steady fall on Tuesday as weak US economic data lowered crude’s demand outlook, while reports of an output decline from the world’s largest oil producers in the third quarter of the year kept prices from falling further.
Brent crude dropped 33 cents or 0.56 percent to $58.92 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude lost 46 cents equivalent to 0.85 percent to trade at $53.61 per barrel.
The OPEC Basket was not exempted as its performance also weakened after shedding $1.42 or 2.27 percent to trade at $61.09 per barrel.
The data revealed that manufacturing activity tumbled to a more than 10-year low in September as the trade war between the world’s top largest economies, the United States and China weighed heavily on exports.
Output at the world’s two largest producers, the United States and Russia, according to the data showed fall in July and September respectively.
Russia’s output declined to 11.24 million barrels per day in September indicating a drop from 11.29 million barrels per day in the previous month, August.
As for the US, as at the time of this report, the American Petroleum Institute (API) was yet to release its data but data gathered by Business Post showed crude oil output fell 276,000 barrels per day in July to 11.81 million barrels per day while it peaked at 12.12 million barrels per day in April.
Also, crude production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell to the lowest in eight years in September at 28.9 million barrels per day down 750,000 barrels per day from figures recorded in August and the lowest monthly total since 2011.
Reports also had it that the decline occurred as oil producing Ecuador revealed plans to cut its tie with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC) which will add more oil to the global market.
Ecuador has said that it will leave OPEC in January 2020 as its government seeks ways to boost revenue, In 2018, Ecuador’s crude output was at 517,200 barrels per day, with exports at 371,200 barrels per day.
However, Prices were already on dropping before the announcement from Ecuador on Tuesday.
