Oil prices continue to fall Thursday morning on weakening geopolitical tensions.
The cost of January futures for Brent on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stood at $91.97 a barrel by 7:22 a.m. Kk, down $0.89 (0.96%) from the previous session’s closing price. At the close of trading on Wednesday those contracts have fallen by $1 (1.1%) to $92.86 per barrel.
The price of WTI futures for December at electronic trades on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is $84.53 per barrel by that time, down $1.06 (1.24%) from the previous session. The day before, the contract fell $1.33 (1.5%) to $85.59 a barrel.
“Prices remain in negative territory as the market has largely ignored various geopolitical factors like Russian-related tensions and focused on more bearish factors such as signals of weakness in the Chinese economy,” Kpler senior oil analyst Matt Smith wrote.
Even the U.S. Department of Energy’s data, released the day before, failed to support the oil market, according to which the country’s commercial oil reserves fell by 5.4 million barrels last week, while analysts had expected a more moderate decline of 1.9 million barrels.
Gasoline inventories increased by 2.21 million barrels and distillates by 1.12 million barrels. Experts were expecting an increase in gasoline stocks by 200 thousand barrels and a decrease in distillate stocks by 1 million barrels.
