Oil prices on Monday continued their decline of the past week due to an increasingly gloomy economic outlook, raising fears for crude demand.
Around 10:00 a.m. GMT (12:00 p.m. in Paris), a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in November fell by 0.68%, to 85.56 dollars.
The barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) American for delivery the same month, lost 0.72% to 78.17 dollars.
“
The price of oil has fallen considerably from the peaks reached in recent months
,” comments Richard Hunter, analyst at Interactive Investor.
"
The combination of the rising dollar and the perception of a lack of demand due to recession fears has driven the price down
," he continues, although this price drop also reduces "
an element of inflationary pressure
".
Crude is "
on the verge of losing all the gains of 2022 (...) due to the deterioration of the global economic outlook and the rise of the dollar
", supports John Plassard, analyst at Mirabaud.
Since the beginning of 2022, Brent is up around 9%, and its American counterpart WTI by around 3%, far from their peak in March at $139.13 and $130.50 respectively, brushing their all-time highs. a few days after the start of the war in Ukraine.
If the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the main driver of the peaks reached by black gold in March because of a possible lack of hydrocarbon supply, for analysts it is now responsible for the fall in prices, in having "
pushed the world to the brink of recession
," said Tamas Varga of PVM Energy.
Rising commodity prices have dramatically increased the cost of living and several major central banks are scrambling to
inflationary fires
”, he continues, with an aggressive tightening of their monetary policy as in the United States last week.
Read alsoOur major investigation into the diverted routes of Russian oil
The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) has moreover revised its global growth forecast sharply downwards for next year under the effect of more lasting consequences than anticipated from the war in Ukraine, especially in the euro, and the rise in central bank interest rates to contain inflation.
Some countries like the United Kingdom are already in recession, according to the Bank of England in particular or the PMI Flash Composite index from S&P Global, when many others are very close to it.
