SINGAPORE: Oil prices fell on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump sent a strident tweet demanding that OPEC cut prices for crude.
The escalating trade row between Washington and Beijing also cast a shadow over markets, with China warning it could introduce duties on U.S. crude imports at an as yet unspecified date.
Brent crude futures were at $77.68 per barrel at 0405 GMT, down 56 cents, or 0.7 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 29 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $73.85 per barrel.
Trump on Wednesday accused the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of driving up fuel prices.
“The OPEC Monopoly must remember that gas prices are up & they are doing little to help,” Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account. “If anything, they are driving prices higher as the United States defends many of their members for very little $’s.”
This must be a two-way street,” he wrote, adding in block capitals, “REDUCE PRICING NOW!”
OPEC together with a group of non-OPEC producers led by Russia started to withhold output in 2017 to prop up prices.
Recent price rises have also been spurred by a U.S. announcement that it plans to re-introduce sanctions against Iran from November, targeting oil exports.
OPEC and Russia announced in June they were willing to raise output to address concerns of emerging supply shortages due to unplanned disruptions from Venezuela to Libya, and likely also to replace a potential fall in Iranian supplies due to U.S. sanctions.
Despite these measures to replace disrupted supplies, Goldman Sachs said in a July 4 note to clients that “the market will remain in deficit” in the second half of the year.
The U.S. bank warned that supply threats were “threatening a sharp further rise in prices and global economic growth”.
