TOKYO (Reuters) – Crude prices fell more than 2% to multi-month lows on Monday as the rising number of cases of the new coronavirus in China and city lockdowns there deepened concerns over oil demand.
FILE PHOTO: Pump jacks operate at sunset in Midland, Texas, U.S. February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
Brent crude LCOc1 fell by $1.28 a barrel, or 2.1%, to $59.41 by 0744 GMT, having earlier dropped to $58.68, its lowest since late October. U.S. crude CLc1 was down by $1.24, or 2.3%, to $52.95, having earlier eased to $52.15, the lowest since early October.
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, seeking to calm the market, said on Monday he was watching developments in China and said he felt confident the new virus would be contained.
Markets are being “primarily driven by psychological factors and extremely negative expectations adopted by some market participants despite (the virus’s) very limited impact on global oil demand,” he said.
With the coronavirus’s ability to spread getting stronger most financial markets are being hit, although many are closed in Asia due to Lunar New Year holidays.
“Such extreme pessimism occurred back in 2003 during the SARS outbreak though it did not cause a significant reduction in oil demand,” Prince Abdulaziz said.
He also said he was confident the kingdom and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with producers in a group known as OPEC+, had the capability to respond and steady the oil market if needed.
OPEC+, which includes Russia and other producers, has been withholding supply to support oil prices and recently increased its agreed output reduction by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.7 million bpd through March.
Prince Abdulaziz said on Friday the aim of OPEC+ was to cut seasonal inventory builds that typically occur in the first half of the year. All options were open when OPEC+ meets in Vienna in March, he said.
“Investor fears on oil demand have risen considerably, driven by unfavorable U.S. inventories and … concerns on impact from the coronavirus outbreak,” Goldman Sachs said in a note.
(GRAPHIC: Map showing places with confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV – here)
Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Tom Hogue