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Oil posted its biggest weekly drop in 11 months as a weak US jobs report added to concerns about tepid demand in the world’s largest consumer of crude.
West Texas Intermediate fell 2.1% to settle at $67.67 a barrel, cementing the biggest weekly plunge since October 2023. While the US jobs data released Friday increased speculation that the Fed may make a super-sized interest rate cut, it also bolstered the narrative of flagging oil consumption that has weighed on crude prices for weeks.
“The market is still on tenterhooks evaluating the strength of the global economy and what the Fed will do,” said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth.
Recent moves to restrict supplies have failed to arrest crude’s decline. While the OPEC+ coalition this week scrapped a plan to boost output by 180,000 barrels a day in October and November, a longer-term plan to revive 2.2 million barrels a day over the course of a year remained in place, with the completion date pushed back two months to December 2025.
Brent futures have trended lower since early July, with weakness in the economies of China and the US — the top two oil consumers — stoking fears about demand. Crude production in the world’s largest economy has also steadily risen in recent years, adding supply pressure to global balances.
The upshot is that even the OPEC+ delay and an almost 7 million-barrel weekly drop in US crude inventories have failed to significantly push up oil prices. Next week’s monthly market outlooks from OPEC, the Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency will be closely watched.
“We see the OPEC+ unwind delay, ongoing geopolitics and financial positioning providing price support at $70 to $72 Brent,” Citigroup Inc. analysts including Eric Lee said in a note. The bank said it sees “moves down to the $60 range in 2025 as a sizable market surplus emerges.”
