By Arathy Somasekhar
(Reuters) -Oil prices settled nearly 5% down on Tuesday at their lowest levels in nearly nine months on signs of a deal to resolve a dispute that has halted Libyan crude production and exports.
Brent crude futures closed down $3.77, or 4.9%, at $73.75 a barrel, their lowest level since Dec. 12. West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI), which did not settle on Monday because of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, fell $3.21, or 4.4%, to $70.34 – also their lowest since December.
Brent closed down 0.3% last week, while WTI settled 1.7% lower.
Libya’s legislative bodies have agreed to appoint a new central bank governor within 30 days after U.N.-sponsored talks, a statement signed by representatives of those bodies said on Tuesday.
Libyan oil exports at major ports were halted on Monday and production curtailed across the country, six engineers told Reuters, continuing a standoff between rival political factions over control of the central bank and oil revenue.
The speculation about a deal was triggering momentum selling, said Ole Hansen, an analyst at Saxo Bank.
Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) declared force majeure on its El Feel oilfield from Sept. 2.
Total production had plunged to little more than 591,000 barrels per day (bpd) as of Aug. 28 from nearly 959,000 bpd on Aug. 26, NOC said. Production was at about 1.28 million bpd on July 20, the company said.
Ahead of the news of more Libyan supply possibly returning to the market, prices had fallen on the belief that demand was being undercut because of sluggish economic growth in China, the world’s biggest crude importer.
“The weaker-than-expected Chinese manufacturing PMI over the weekend likely exacerbated concerns about the Chinese economy’s performance,” said Charalampos Pissouros, senior investment analyst at brokerage XM.
China reported on Monday that new export orders fell for the first time in eight months in July and that prices of new homes rose in August at their weakest pace this year.
Hopes that the U.S. driving season would propel prices to new 2024 highs this summer have also failed to materialize, said Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst at Forex.
U.S. gasoline futures fell nearly 6% to their lowest since December 2021, as the end of the summer driving season weighed on demand for the motor fuel.
“The fact that recent data shows no signs of any acceleration in import demand in China, Europe or North America points to a situation where the oil market is not going to be as tight as expected a few months ago,” Razaqzada said.
Some supply is set to return to the market as eight members of OPEC and affiliates, together known as OPEC+, are scheduled to boost output by 180,000 bpd in October. The plan is likely to go ahead regardless of demand worries, industry sources said.
Disruptions to supply flows from the Middle East after two oil tankers were attacked on Monday in the Red Sea off Yemen were not enough to buoy prices. The tankers did not sustain major damage.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru, Colleen Howe in Beijing and Emily Chow in Singapore; Additional reporting by Paul Carsten and Rob Harvey in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Paul Simao)
