Brent crude LCOc1 fell by $1.36 a barrel, or 2.2%, to $59.33 by 0425 GMT, having earlier dropped to $58.68, its lowest since late October. U.S. crude CLc1 was down by $1.30, or 2.4%, to $52.89, having earlier eased to $52.15, the lowest since early October. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud 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. “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.

Source: GhanaWeb January 27, 2020 04:30 UTC