JUST IN: Oil price drops again amidst Coronavirus fears

The price of crude oil has gown down again as concern over a persistent glut and economic gloom caused by the coronavirus pandemic looms.

NAN reports that Brent crude futures were down 29 cents, or 0.9% at $30.68 a barrel in the early hours of Monday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 17 cents, or 0.7%, to $24.57 a barrel.

Both benchmarks have notched up gains over the past two weeks as countries have eased business and social lockdowns imposed to cope with the coronavirus and fuel demand has rebounded modestly.

Oil production worldwide is also declining.

In a sign of that impact, the number of operating oil and gas rigs in the world’s largest oil producer fell to 74 in the week to May 8, a record low according to data released on Friday from energy services firm Baker Hughes Co going back to 1940.

“People are surprised by how quickly the U.S. is shutting in production and that’s exactly what we need in order to support prices,” said Tony Nunan, a senior risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo.

“There are another 10 days before the June contract expires … if the WTI contract can avoid a crash going into expiry, hopefully, we’ve seen the bottom.”

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