At the close, Brent dropped 0.5% to $ 43.14 and WTI dropped 0.4% to $ 40.59.
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Oil prices fell slightly on Friday, weighed down by profit taking and a new record of COVID-19 cases in the United States, a worrying sign for the recovery in crude demand.
A barrel of Brent North Sea crude for September delivery ended at $ 43.14 in London, down 0.5% or 23 cents from Thursday’s close.
In New York, the American barrel of WTI for the month of August dropped 0.4% or 16 cents, to 40.59 dollars.
On the week, Brent lost 0.2%, while WTI gained 0.1%.
“Renewed concerns about the increasing number of coronavirus cases worldwide are weighing on the energy market,” said Stephen Brennock, analyst at PVM.
“This uncertainty around the impact of the pandemic on demand traps oil prices in a scenario” one step forward, one step back “. The crisis is far from being contained, market players have little choice but to wait and see, ”he added.
The United States broke a new record of daily Covid-19 contaminations on Thursday, with more than 68,000 new cases registered in 24 hours.
Brazil, the second country most affected by the pandemic, has passed the two million contamination mark, but the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that the epidemic had reached a “plateau” there and called the authorities to seize this “opportunity to ward off the disease.”
Jeffrey Halley of Oanda attributes the slight decline in Friday’s oil prices to profit taking and was reassured to see that “the markets have equated without incident the imminent increase in production of OPEC +”.
The members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies decided on Wednesday to maintain the planned reduction in their black gold production cuts.
They will go from 9.6 million barrels per day (mbd) currently “to a total of 8.1 to 8.2 mbd in August” according to calculations by the Saudi Minister of Energy, Prince Abdelaziz ben Salman, which correspond to 7.7 mbd entered in the initial calendar plus the compensation expected from countries which did not respect their quotas.
“Producers can decide how quickly they want to jumpstart production, but everything OPEC + does could be useless if the demand doesn’t keep up,” warned Louise Dickson of Rystad Energy.
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