US Debt Crisis, Chinese Demand Worries Drag Oil Prices In Early Trade: What You Need To Know

Oil prices slipped during Monday morning Asian trade as concerns about demand at top oil-consuming nations U.S. and China negated positive factors like a reduction in oil supplies due to OPEC+ production cuts.

West Texas Intermediate futures maturing in June were trading 0.46% lower at $69.72 per barrel at the time of writing. The United States Brent Oil Fund (NYSE:BNO) closed 1.73% lower on Friday while the Vanguard Energy Index Fund ETF (NYSE:VDE) gained 0.23%.

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The fear of a potential U.S. default on national debt is also looming high as no conclusion has been reached following last week's talks between President Joe Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and senior Congressional leaders.

An interesting development statement came from the Middle East. Iraq does not expect the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies including Russia (OPEC+) to make further reductions to oil output at its next meeting in June, its oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said, reported Reuters.

However, global crude supplies could tighten during the second half of the year as the OPEC+ are making additional output cuts that is bringing down sour crude availability, the report said.

Expert Take: CMC Markets analyst Tina Teng told Reuters oil prices are still under pressure on sluggish demand outlooks as China's economic reopening progress seems bumpy. Investors will now focus on China’s slew of economic data on industrial output, fixed assets investment, and retail sales for signs of oil demand improvement, she said.

"The impact of OPEC's 1.6mb/d cut to output remains underwhelming. For the moment, further cuts to production are off the table," ANZ Research said in a note.

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