Crude Oil Prices Slip as Demand Fears Regain Upper Hand By Investing.com – Investing.com UK

Crude Oil Prices Slip as Demand Fears Regain Upper Hand By Investing.com – Investing.com UK

© Reuters.

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- Crude oil prices weakened on Thursday as concerns about the continued rapid spread of Covid-19 in India and South America in particular cast a shadow over the global demand outlook.

By 10:30 AM ET (1430 GMT), futures were down 0.9% at $59.24 a barrel, while , the global marker, was down 0.6% at $62.80 a barrel.

U.S. were down 0.7% at $1.9380 a gallon, and have now lost some 3.5% since the start of the month. They underperformed on Wednesday after a shock 4 million barrel increase in U.S. gasoline inventories sowed doubt about the strength of U.S. demand.

“A huge build in road fuel stocks is not what the market was expecting and concerns over the speed of the oil demand recovery resurfaced,” said Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen, noting that the expected boost to mobility from the Easter weekend had failed to materialize.

Such weakness needs to be put in perspective, admittedly. According to Patrick DeHaan, an analyst with Pay With GasBuddy, American spent over twice as much on gasoline on Wednesday as they did a year earlier, when prices were only slightly higher, but the whole country was going into lockdown.

An additional concern has