Oil closed lower on Friday, the commodity’s 10th consecutive losing streak, the longest since July 1984 according to Refinitiv. Oil officially entered a bear market on Thursday.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell below $60 a barrel on Friday for the first time since early March. Prices are currently hovering around their lowest in about nine months.
Oil peaked in October on concerns U.S. sanctions on Iran would crimp supply, however, even as these sanctions were officially implemented the oil market appears to be well supplied with other major producers more than compensating.
The U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia are all producing at or near record levels while Washington provided exemptions on some of the biggest exporters of Iranian crude, allowing them to continue to purchase in the near term.
Meanwhile, concerns that global economic growth will wane are also supporting oil bears. Oil is an economically sensitive commodity, meaning that when the economy cools demand slips, while when the economy fires up demand for oil climbs. This is because in an expanding economy there is a higher demand for goods and travel, and it takes oil to power airplanes, trucks and automobiles.
As reported by Reuters, oil entering a bear market has Saudi Arabia discussing a proposal for an output cut with the cooperating of OPEC and non-OPEC producers.
