Oil Retreats on Weak Outlook for Chinese Demand, Stronger Dollar
Live Mint-- Oil extended declines as a soft outlook for demand in China, the world’s largest crude importer, continued to plague the market. The nearest WTI futures contract is trading at its smallest premium to the following month since June, indicating that short-term tightness in the physical oil market is easing. OPEC’s decision to delay the production increase “provided only a temporary boost to the supply risk baked into crude oil prices, but our decomposition of energy market returns suggest that another delay just won’t cut it,” Daniel Ghali, a commodity strategist at TD Securities, said in a note to clients. “In this context, without a resurgence in geopolitical risk tied to oil supplies, the set-up would favor continued downside in prices,” Ghali added.