[BREAKING] Oil Falls More Than 1% As Surging COVID-19 Cases Stoke Demand Fears

Oil prices fell on Monday, extending last week’s losses, as a jump in COVID-19 infections in the United States and Europe raised alarms over crude demand, while the prospect of increased supply also hurt sentiment.

Illustration photo of crude oil pump from Reuter.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down by 53 cents, or 1.3%, at $41.24 by 0052 (GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped 53 cents, or 1.3%, to $39.32, having fallen more than a dollar shortly after the start of trading.

Brent fell 2.7% last week and WTI dropped 2.5%.

On the supply side, Libya’s National Oil Corp on Friday ended its force majeure on exports from two key ports and said production would reach 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in four weeks, a quicker ramp-up than many analysts had predicted.

OPEC+, a grouping of producers including the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia, is also set to increase output by 2 million bpd in January 2021 after cutting production by a record amount earlier this year.

“If market conditions worsen, (OPEC+) will have no choice but to delay the increase of quotas by a month or two at its meeting on 1 December,” Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ). said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated last week he may agree to extending OPEC+ oil production reductions.

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