Oil Prices Drop More Than 3% and Brent Crude Settles at $64.35 per Barrel

 

July 17, 2019

 

Oil prices turned lower on Tuesday, falling more than 3% after U.S. President Donald Trump said progress has been made with Iran, signaling tensions could ease in the Mideast.

 

Brent crude futures LCOc1 fell $2.13 a barrel, or 3.2%, to settle at $64.35. The international benchmark hit a session high of $67.09 earlier in the day.

 

West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 settled at $57.62 a barrel, down $1.96, or 3.3%.

 

Trump on Tuesday said a lot of progress had been made with Iran and that he was not looking for regime change in the country.

 

Uncertainty about China’s economic prospects also pressured prices lower after data on Monday showed growth in the country had slowed to 6.2% from a year earlier, the weakest pace in at least 27 years.

 

Additionally, U.S. oil companies on Monday began restoring some of the nearly 74% of production that was shut at platforms in the Gulf of Mexico because of Hurricane Barry.

 

Workers were returning to the more than 280 production platforms that had been evacuated. It can take several days for full production to resume.

 

(Reuters)