Oil sinks 2% on ‘demand destruction’ worries, weak China exports

Oil prices fell roughly 3% on Tuesday after China’s exports dropped for a sixth straight month, underscoring a global demand slowdown.

Exports out of the world’s largest oil consumer fell by 6.4% year-over-year while imports rose 3%.

West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) and Brent (BZ=F) crude futures were hovering around $79 and $83 per barrel, respectively, in morning trading.

Daily price moves of more than 2% in either direction have become a common occurrence since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel last month, keeping oil futures volatile but in a downward trend over the past two weeks.

“The market continues to be more focused on demand destruction than escalating war tensions,” wrote Dennis Kissler, senior vice president at BOK Financial’s trading division.

Moscow and Saudi Arabia recently reiterated their unilateral voluntary curbs, which up until September had fueled a supply squeeze even though Bloomberg data shows exports coming out of Russia are at a 4-month high.

“While the Saudi and Russian supply cuts are now penciled into year-end, there may be some cheating being noted,” said Kissler, noting Russian ship traffic point to crude export levels above what the Russian oil minister has been stating.

OPEC+ will hold its next meeting later this month. Saudi Arabia and Russia could decide to extend their unilateral curbs into next year. Those cuts are on top of the reductions from the rest of the oil cartel lasting through 2024.

On Tuesday the US dollar index (DX-Y) rose, also putting pressure on crude prices. Oil is denominated in dollars.

Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @ines_ferre.

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