U.S. Oversupply And Dwindling Demand Causes Oil Prices To Drop – 31 March, 2020

An unexpected rise in U.S. oil inventories and ongoing tension with OPEC caused crude prices to continue to drop to 2002 lows, adding on to their biggest quarterly and monthly losses of all time. Brent crude was down 1.8% or 47 cents to $25.88 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 12 or 0.6% at the start of a new quarter to $20.6 per barrel. To end the quarter, crude futures recorded 70% in losses for March. Data shows that U.S. crude inventories were up by 10.5 million barrels from the previous week, significantly higher than the 4 million barrels originally forecast. OPEC members were unsuccessful at coming to an agreement over steps to take to offset oil demand losses and sliding prices.