GOING DOWN

Oil Prices Plumb New Depths at Less Than $12 a Barrel

Demand keeps falling over doubts about how and when the American economy can reopen.

U.S. oil prices plummeted to less than $12 a barrel Monday morning, the lowest for over two decades, as doubts grew about Donald Trump’s ability to end the U.S. pandemic lockdown and investors braced for a week of potentially damaging figures about the impact of the coronavirus on the world economy. According to CNBC, the May contract of U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell to $11.66 a barrel, down more than 36 percent. The price fall came despite the fact that oil-producing nations agreed to a 10 percent output cut last week. It also came as the heads of all the UN’s major agencies issued a graphic warning of the risk of coronavirus to the world’s most vulnerable countries, after disclosing that international donors had pledged only around a quarter of the $2 billion the UN requested in March for its emergency COVID-19 response.