Oil falls on easing geopolitical tensions, China demand worries

Oil prices extended declines on Thursday as concerns over geopolitical tensions eased, while rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in China added to demand worries in the world’s largest crude importer, Reuters reported.

Brent crude futures fell by $1.04, or 1.1%, to $91.82 a barrel by 0430 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slid $1.17, or 1.4%, to $84.42 a barrel.

On Wednesday Brent dropped by 1.1% and WTI 1.5% after Russian oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary restarted.

“Crude oil fell after NATO cleared Russia’s missile attack on Poland, while demand concerns (are) back to trader’s focus amid ongoing China’s COVID curbs and gloomy global economic outlooks,” said Tina Teng, an analyst at CMC Markets.

Poland and military alliance NATO said on Wednesday that a missile that crashed inside NATO member Poland was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences and not a Russian strike, easing fears of the war between Russian and Ukraine spilling across the border.