which fell 51 cents.
Singapore Wednesday was the third day in a row that oil prices went down. Investors were worried that a global recession and stricter COVID-19 rules in China would hurt fuel demand.
By 0033 GMT, Brent crude futures had dropped 51 cents, or 0.5%, to $93.78 per barrel. The price of a barrel of U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell by 69 cents, or 0.8%, to $88.66.
The day before, both benchmarks fell by 2%.
On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund lowered its prediction for global growth in 2023 and warned that a global recession is becoming more likely.
But the IMF also told central banks to keep fighting inflation, even though investors are worried that policymakers could cause a sharp economic downturn by raising interest rates too quickly and too high.
Loretta Mester, president of the Fed Bank of Cleveland, said that the U.S. Federal Reserve will need to keep tightening monetary policy because it hasn’t been able to control inflation yet.
Overnight, the dollar went up a lot because a top official at the Bank of England told pension fund managers to finish rebalancing their positions by Friday, which is when the British central bank will stop buying bonds.
When the dollar gets stronger, commodities priced in dollars become more expensive for people who have other currencies. This tends to hurt oil and other risky assets.
Tina Teng, an analyst at CMC Markets, said that traders are being careful as they wait for the U.S. CPI data to come out on Thursday.
“Data that is hotter than expected may again push investors over the edge, which will make the current fears of a recession worse and put more pressure on oil prices,” Teng said.
Tighter COVID- The 19 limits in China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, are also putting pressure on the oil market.
After the number of COVID-19 infections reached its highest level since August, big cities in China like Shanghai and Shenzhen increased COVID-19 testing and put in place stricter rules.
Analysts at ANZ Research said in a note that Chinese officials are making it clear that their COVID-19 policy will not be changed, which will make the demand situation even worse.
On the supply side, a preliminary Reuters poll on Tuesday showed that U.S. crude oil stocks rose by 1.8 million barrels in the week ending October 7, after falling for the two weeks before.
This week, data on inventories are a day late because of a holiday on Monday. The American Petroleum Institute will release its industry data on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. EDT (20:30 GMT), and the U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its data at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT).
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, which include Russia, decided last week to cut their production goal by 2 million barrels per day.
ANZ said that the market has “largely shrugged off” the fact that the OPEC+ announcement made it seem like there would be less oil on the market.
