Brent crude futures had dropped $1.21 to $93.89 bbl. To $88.57 bbl, WTI crude futures dropped $0.84. The benchmarks for oil futures experienced a 3% fall in the sessions of the previous days.
China’s economy abruptly decelerated last month, with manufacturing and retail operations being constrained by the zero-COVID policy and a housing issue. China’s central bank lowered loan rates to boost demand.
All commodity prices, due to China’s economic statistics for last month revealing weaker growth than had been anticipated, are pressured, which sparked additional worries about the prospects for demand.
When Beijing announced further quotas, which put pressure on already-collapsing refining margins, China’s exports of fuel products were predicted to increase in August to almost an annual high.
Investors followed the discussions to resurrect the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015. If Iran and the US agree to a deal from the EU to lift restrictions on Iranian oil sales, more oil might enter the market, according to experts.
An EU official said that Iran reacted to the EU’s finished draft language to rescue the 2015 nuclear agreement on August 15, but the source gave no further information. The United States was urged by the foreign minister of Iran to be flexible in order to settle the three outstanding questions.
According to data released on August 15 by the United States EIA, production in the main US shale oil regions would increase to 9.049 million bpd in the next month, the highest rate since 2020 in the beginning. Production will reach a high 5.408 million bpd in the Permian, the largest US shale oil area, the report emphasized.
Market investors expected sector figures on US crude inventories that were scheduled to be released within the day. According to an initial Reuters poll released on August 15, distillate inventories increased in the week before whereas oil and gasoline inventories probably decreased.
