Oil prices fell in Tuesday morning trading, as investors assessed the strength of travel orders in China during the Labor Day holiday period; This supports the demand for fuel, in addition to the potential interest rate hike and its impact on slowing economic growth.
By 07:10 am GMT, Brent crude futures fell 7 cents to $82.66 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 6 cents to $78.70 a barrel.
In China, particularly during the Labor Day holiday, overseas travel reservations indicated a continued recovery in travel to Asian countries. However, the numbers are still far from pre-pandemic levels, with the high cost of long-haul flights and the insufficient number of them.
And the unstable recovery of the economy in China after the Covid 19 pandemic led to a state of uncertainty about the expectations of oil demand, although Chinese customs data showed last Friday that the largest importer of crude in the world brought record quantities of oil last March, and China’s imports of oil exceeded The largest suppliers of crude, Russia and Saudi Arabia, two million barrels per day from each.
Oil's performance today came amid expectations that the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank will raise interest rates in their monetary policy committee meetings during the first week of next May.
Today, Tuesday, investors are awaiting oil industry data on US oil inventories, amid expectations that they will decline by about 1.7 million barrels in the week ending April 21.
