Oil extends losses after closing week at multi-month lows amid recession worries

• Financial

US WTI (West Texas Intermediate) and Brent crude oil contracts opened sharply lower on Monday, extending their latest streak of losses as frets of an epizootic recession appears to be looming large over the horizon. As of mid-day European trading, US WTI crude oil contracts were last trading 1.28 per cent lower to $87.33 a barrel, while UK crude oil futures fell 1.04 per cent to $93.40 per barrel.

However, on Friday, both US and UK crude oil futures’ prices had closed out the session in an upbeat tenure, paring some of their weekly percentage losses, but both benchmarks had rounded off the week at their lowest level since February, as fears of a rancorous recession appears to have scaled higher.

In the matter of the fact, Friday's gain of crude oil contracts was almost entirely catapulted by a riant US job data, as US employers added 528,000 positions last month with unemployment rate falling to a pre-pandemic low of 3.5 per cent.

Nevertheless, the data socketed frets of a recession, too, as a decent job market in the US would highly likely to encourage the US Fed to cement its hawkish stance even in the expense of a recession. US GDP (Gross Domestic Product) contracted over the first two quarters of the year, ratting the corrosive cage of a contagious contraction which might spread across other G20 nations.

Adding that traders were mostly worried over an inflation-spike, demand-crunch alongside uncertainties surrounding economic growth, a director of energy futures at Mizuho, Bob Yawger said, “This is strong economic data that's supporting the oil market rise today”.

Crude oil wraps week at multi-month lows

Citing statistics, in the day’s commodity market wind-down, UK crude closed about 1 per cent higher to $94.42 per barrel, while US WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil prices added 0.6 per cent to $89.01 a barrel.

Over the week, UK crude oil futures’ prices lost 11 per cent, while US WTI crude oil futures’ prices fell 8 per cent.