Oil Price Plunges As Covid Variant Wreaks Energy Bets, Boosts Biden's SPR Gambit
U.S. oil prices plunged more than 10% Friday, dragging crude below $70 a barrel, as investors grow increasingly concerned that the newly-discovered Covid variant will dent energy demand over the coming months.
The World Health Organization called the Covid strain, known as B.1.1.529, a 'variant of concern' ahead of the agency's emergency meeting Friday following the discovery of the infection in a traveler visiting Israel from South Africa earlier this week. It has also been identified in Hong Kong, according to U.K. health officials, and is thought to be resistant to current vaccine structures.
The downdraft in crude may offer some respite, however, in President Joe Biden's struggle to tame global energy prices following a surge earlier this week in the wake of his decision to release 50 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
However, the move also comes just days ahead of a December meeting of OPEC ministers in Vienna, many of whom have resisted calls to quicken the pace of paring their years-old agreement on production cuts, which have helped lift global crude prices to the highest levels in seven years last month.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/oil-price-plunges-as-covid-variant-wreaks-energy-bets-boosts-bidens-spr-gambit/ar-AARaJ0u
= new reply since forum marked as read
