The Texas oil price (WTI) opened Wednesday with a 11.42% drop, to $ 17.60 a barrel, at its lowest level since 1999 although contracts for June, which come into force in four days , experienced slight increases after the presentation of the economic reopening plan announced by the federal government.
At 09:16 local time (13:16 GMT), WTI futures contracts for May delivery were subtracted $ 2.27 from the previous session on Thursday.
Oil prices were falling, although analysts were optimistic about the rise in contracts for the month of June, which put the barrel at about $ 25.57 in the first minutes of the session, and indicated that the drop in the current contract it is common near the expiration date.
In this sense, investors hope that the plans for the progressive reopening of the country in phases, presented yesterday by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, will help reduce excess supply and gradually restore the balance to demand, which will has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far, 671,525 coronavirus infections have been reported in the United States, some 33,286 people have died and 56,236 have recovered, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
A return to relative normality, at least in terms of economic activity, is expected to help oil prices around the world, especially if they coincide in time with cuts of about 10 million barrels per day (bpd ) agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners.
Analysts also point to the need for those cuts to be complemented by those from other producer countries outside OPEC, especially in the United States.
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