Crude oil prices drifted lower on Tuesday as reports showing a surge in Covid-19 cases in China raised concerns about the outlook for energy demand.
West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended lower by $2.88 or about 3.1% at $88.91 a barrel.
Brent crude futures settled at $95.36 a barrel today, down $2.56 or about 2.% from the previous session.
China is seeing a surge in new coronavirus cases in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities, preventing the country from stamping out the virus and relaxing controls.
The global manufacturing hub is fighting its worst flare-up ever, testing its ability to avoid a Shanghai-style lockdown.
Traders await the weekly reports from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The API's report is due later today, while the EIA is scheduled to release its weekly inventory data Wednesday morning.
Analysts expect the EIA data to show a drop of 700,000 barrels of crude and a drop of 1.2 million barrels of gasoline last week. They expect the data to show a decline of 900,000 barrels of distillates last week.
