Brent futures were down $8.90, or 8.3%, at $98 a barrel in morning trading in London, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $8.97, or a 8.7%, to 94.04 dollars a barrel.
Both benchmark contracts fell below the $100 a barrel threshold for the first time since March 1.
Brent has lost nearly $40 from a 14-year high hit on March 7, while WTI crude has fallen more than $30 a barrel since hitting a high since 2008 almost a week ago.
The sharp fall in prices comes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergi Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow is in favor of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal being resumed as soon as possible and hopes that Washington will lift the sanctions on Tehran.
Talks to resume the nuclear deal, which would see sanctions lifted on the Iranian oil sector, recently stalled over Russian demands.
Crude oil prices extended their losses after falling 5% the previous day, after the rise in daily COVID-19 infections in China raised concerns about the huge economic costs of the country’s harsh containment measures.
Meanwhile, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the United States Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting on Tuesday to decide on its monetary policy, with the markets waiting for the first interest rate hike in more than three years.
A signal from the US to Venezuela’s oil
The White House communicated through its spokesman that the United States is not maintaining “for now” contacts with Venezuela or launching any plan to import oil from that country and thus balance prices after closing the tap on Russian crude due to the invasion. from Ukraine. “It’s not something we’re actively talking about right now,” Jen Psaki said, at her daily news conference.
Last week, a high-level delegation from the US government traveled to Caracas with the intention of proposing an economic agreement to Nicolás Maduro to meet some energy demands in its economy, which sparked harsh criticism from several legislators of both parties in Congress. . Democratic Senator Bob Menéndez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the purchase of Venezuelan oil could perpetuate the humanitarian crisis in that country. “We should not breathe new life into the reign of torture and murder [de Maduro]”, Menendez said in a statement.
The trip to Caracas also created tension with one of Washington’s allies on the continent. The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, arrived on an official visit to the White House after knowing the contacts with Maduro and without him having been notified of it. After meeting with the US president last Thursday, Duque revealed that he had offered Biden the supply of more Colombian oil to stabilize energy prices, as an alternative to Venezuelan crude.
Source: Ambito
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