World oil prices fell 2 percent at the end of trading Thursday (24/3) afternoon or Friday (25/3) morning WIB.
Quoting Antara, the price of Brent crude oil futures for May delivery slumped US$2.57, or 2.1 percent, to US$119.03 per barrel.
Meanwhile, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for April delivery fell $2.59, or 2.3 percent, to $112.34 per barrel.
The decline occurred after last Wednesday (23/3), both oil benchmark contracts closed at their highest levels since March 8. Analysts said yesterday’s decline in oil prices was due to the failure of the Russian oil boycott plan.
For information, European Union leaders held a two-day meeting to discuss plans to boycott Russian oil.
The boycott will be carried out by reducing Russia’s oil dependence. The boycott came after Moscow required the use of the ruble in transactions to buy Russian gas and oil. However nEU countries are still torn by the plan.
The difference of opinion pressured oil prices. In addition, the weakening was also triggered by reports that exports from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) Kazakh terminal were partially able to resume.
“Reports that the CPC pipeline is coming back is a huge relief to the market so it’s driving prices down,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.
However, the weakening of oil due to sentiment was restrained by reports of a decline in US crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to the lowest level since May 2002.
(between/agt)
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