Oil Prices Hit the Lowest in 17 Years as Death Toll for Coronavirus Pandemic Reaches Over 34,000 Around the World

Team Industry Outlook | Monday, 30 March 2020

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The Asian oil market hit the lowest possible price in the last 17 years as Coronavirus pandemic continues to terrorize national and international economies. West Texus Intermediate, the US benchmark for oil fell 5.3 percent with per barrel price going down to $20. While Brent Crude, the internationally accepted benchmark for oil fell 6.3 percent with per barrel pricing going down to 23.

According to senior US scientist Anthony Fauci, US is most likely to experience 100,000 to 200,000 because of this outbreak as President Donald Trump has decided to extend the “social distancing guidelines until 30th April.

Oil markets all across the world experienced huge decline in demand which has led all time low oil prices. "Demand concerns are critical but well

known, what really took the market down were the signals we got from Saudi Arabia and Russia that they intend to continue their current path," Vivek Dhar, a commodities analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told Media.

"When the storage capacity is filled, we should probably expect a response from Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other essential oil producers," AxiCorp's Stephen Innes said, though he warned "the longer their response takes, the higher the risk of another steep decline in oil prices".

The US president also expressed that he expected the country to "be well on our way to recovery" by June 1 thus dropping his previous target of mid-April. The virus has infected more than 140,000 in the world's most significant economy and has resulted in more than 2,400 dead.

Looking at the other economies, Italy has already suffered a capital loss in the GDP because of the COVID-19 outbreak and China, the epicentre has claimed to have sustained the spread of the disease. Looking at the other Asian countries, there is major panic regarding the outbreak of the disease as India is under a vital 21 day lockdown that is most like to get extended until May.

Meanwhile, the central government has also implemented plans to lend a helping hand towards the poverty stricken population of the country most of which are daily wage labourers and do not have a proper place to stay during the lockdown.