Oil prices fell for the third consecutive day on Thursday, as concerns over the economic consequences of rising interest rates overshadowed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude inventories and hopes for a recovery in Chinese demand.
Comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell earlier this week about the possibility of needing to raise interest rates more than anticipated following recent strong data influenced oil and other riskier assets due to potential ramifications for economic growth and demand growth.
By 09:02 GMT, Brent crude futures dropped by 34 cents or 0.4% to $82.32 per barrel. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell by 11 cents to $76.55 per barrel. Both benchmarks declined by four to five percent over the past two days.
Oil futures decreased by more than three percent on Tuesday, marking their largest daily loss since early January, following Powell's remarks.
Despite China's crude imports declining by 1.3% in the first two months of 2023 year-on-year, analysts pointed to a surge in imports in February as an indicator of a recovery in fuel demand after the country lifted COVID-19 restrictions.
At the same time, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration released yesterday showed that U.S. crude inventories fell by 1.7 million barrels last week, contrary to analysts' expectations of a 395,000-barrel increase, thus ending a ten-week streak of rising inventories.
