Precise Investors Editorial Team
Brent crude futures settled 85 cents, or 1.37%, lower at $61.06 a barrel
Oil prices dropped more than 1% on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet in Hungary soon to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, casting uncertainty over global energy supplies.
Brent crude futures settled 85 cents, or 1.37%, lower at $61.06 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures closed 81 cents, or 1.39%, lower at $57.46. Those were the lowest settlements for both benchmarks since May 5.
Trump said he and Putin agreed on Thursday to meet in Budapest soon to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, one day before the U.S. president was due to speak with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The date of the summit was not provided.
The geopolitical tension between Russia, the United States and Ukraine is beginning to redevelop, said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics, pushing some market participants to unwind their positions.
Also weighing on prices, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude inventories increased by 3.5 million barrels to 423.8 million barrels last week, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 288,000-barrel rise. The bigger-than-expected build in crude inventory was largely due to lower refining utilization as refineries go into fall turnarounds.
A modestly bearish report, with a large crude build being offset by a large distillate draw, but with implied oil demand considerably weaker than last week, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
The data also showed an increase in U.S. production to 13.636 million barrels per day, the highest on record.
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