The price of a barrel of North Sea Brent oil in Asian markets today lost more than 12% of its value and its price has fallen to less than $ 17 a barrel, while American oil has lost almost all the gains it made to reach $ 11, with economic activity in the world stopped due to an outbreak Corona epidemic.
The benchmark European Brent barrel price fell 12.13% to $ 16.98 in Asian trading, continuing that heavy losses incurred yesterday.
As for the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil for June delivery, the price rose by about 20% at the start of the session, as it fell about 5% and reached $ 11 today.
The US oil prices collapsed at the beginning of the week to an unprecedented level of about 40 dollars below zero a barrel, due to declining demand and stockpiles caused by the outbreak of the "Covid 19".
The slowdown in the world's economies due to the epidemic led to a surplus in oil that forced crude brokers to pay money to get rid of the barrels they had pledged to buy.
Analysts said that the price hikes at the beginning of the session resulted from news that the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and a number of its allies in the "OPEC +" group held a phone conference on Tuesday. But markets quickly returned to reality.