Crude Oil Benchmark Futures Dropped Over 2%
Crude oil bechmarks, WTI and Brent dropped over 2% on Monday morning
Benchmark prices of crude oils dropped over 2% Monday morning as Omicron cases surge in Europe and United States which might lead to renewed movement restriction affecting demand for oil.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 2.67% to $68.97 while Brent futures fell 2.42% to $71.74 as of Thailand time 11:04 hours.
Kelvin Wong, market analyst at CMC Markets said, “Today’s Asia … weak sentiment in oil prices seems to go in line with a weakness seen in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures,”, as reported by Reuters.
“(This is) due to fears of impending restrictions on economic activities to contain the current increasing spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant worldwide which may increase the risk of demand slowdown.”
In Europe, Netherland became the first country to go into lockdown on Sunday.
