Oil posts losses as virus worries cause low demand

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Crude oil prices have continued to post losses on Friday as the spread of coronavirus worldwide keeps global oil demand low.

Brent crude was trading at $50.22 per barrel at 0600 GMT on Friday for a 1.57% loss after closing Thursday at $51.02 a barrel when it saw a daily decline of 4.51%.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $45.67 a barrel at the same time for a 2.43% decrease after ending the previous session at $46.81 per barrel with a 2.63% loss.

The death toll from the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has increased to 2,790. Forty-four people have died in the past 24 hours, and 327 new cases were detected by health authorities, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to more than 78,824, according to the country’s National Health Commission on Friday.

Oil consumption in Asian and European countries is expected to remain low due to weak economic activity in the first half of 2020 if coronavirus continues to spread, experts warned.

OPEC and its allies will meet in Vienna, Austria on March 5-6 to discuss the outlook of the global oil market and to look at further cutting their oil production levels to trim the supply glut to match low oil demand worldwide.

The group dubbed as OPEC+ was advised on Feb. 8 by its technical committee to cut its output by an additional 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) on top of the existing production curb of 1.7 million bpd.