Oil prices fell, settling in volatile trading on Friday, with the two benchmarks recording their biggest weekly losses in several months, amid growing fears of a recession that erased the impact of worries about supplies in the wake of weak data in China, Europe and the United States.
US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 44 cents to $71.02 a barrel upon settlement, its lowest level in 2022. Brent crude futures fell 5 cents to $76.10 a barrel upon settlement.
“Any supply concerns have become secondary to them,” said Robert Yawger, an analyst at Mizuho For concerns about the economy“, according to Archyde.com.
Oil prices had some support and rose more than 1% earlier in the session after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country, the world’s largest energy exporter, may cut production in response to imposing a cap on the price of its crude exports.
However, a slightly higher-than-expected rise in US producer prices in November and news of the partial restart of the Keystone pipeline pulled back crude gains and sent the two benchmarks down more than $1 a barrel.
The Keystone line was shut down earlier this week after a 14,000-barrel oil spill in Kansas.
The two benchmarks recorded weekly losses of about 10% each, in the largest weekly decline in percentage for US crude since early August and for Brent since April.
In China, economists said that the high number of Corona infections will likely dampen economic growth over the next few months, despite the easing of some restrictions, leading to a recovery but later in 2023.