Oil Down as Delta, OPEC Stand-Off Haunt Market By Investing.com – Investing.com

Oil Down as Delta, OPEC Stand-Off Haunt Market By Investing.com – Investing.com

© Reuters.

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com - Oil prices fell Monday as worries about the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus and the continued Saudi-UAE standoff in OPEC kept buyers away as the market began a new week.

New York-traded , the benchmark for U.S. oil, settled down 46 cents, or 0.6%, at $74.10 a barrel. WTI also lost 0.6% last week.

London-traded , the global benchmark for oil, slid 39 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $75.16. Brent  lost 0.8% last week. 

The United States recorded the highest number of Covid cases over the weekend since May as the highly-transmissible Delta variant of the virus became more prevalent.

The spread of coronavirus variants and unequal access to vaccines threaten the global economic recovery, finance chiefs of the G-20 large economies warned on Saturday. While Southeast Asia and Australia have largely been the focus of new variants, Western capitals haven’t been spared either.

Despite growing concerns over Delta, the rally in oil has been largely insulated by bullish U.S. inventory data, which has shown seven straight weeks of crude drawdowns totaling more than 40 million barrels. 

Wednesday’s weekly report from the Energy Information Administration could show another