Oil markets fell yesterday, as Brent oil futures went down by 3.84 percent and Western Texas Intermediate oil futures lost 4.02 percent.
As of late,, the United States President, Donald Trump announced that he was restricting travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days due to the concerning effects of the coronavirus outbreak in America’s daily life and economy. Trump also asked the American Congress to pass a payroll tax relief but failed to provide a more detailed economic rescue plan.
“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” said Trump on Wednesday, night, “I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus,” he added.
The oil markets are also currently amid a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, who couldn’t agree on the implementation of supply cuts that would help to keep the oil prices under control. The Saudi Ministry told the Saudi company Aramco to increase its oil production from 12 to 13 million barrels per day since Russia decided to abandon the OPEC+ framework, perhaps as an attempt to provoke the collapse of the United State’s shale oil industry.
“The company is exerting its maximum efforts to implement this directive as soon as possible,” said Aramco’s Amin Nasser regarding the Saudi oil ministry’s orders.
The United Arab Emirates entered the war as the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company expressed its intention to provide around 4 million barrels per day in April, which means that they plan to increase the supply by one million barrels per day.
By 10:05 GMT Western Texas, crude oil futures went down by 5.52 percent at 31.16. Conversely, Brent oil futures fell by 5.53 percent, at 33.81.