Peace Talks Caused Crude Oil Prices To Decline

The ongoing peace talks in the war between Ukraine and Russia caused crude oil prices to decline.

Oil prices continued to fall on Tuesday as Ukraine-Russia peace talks appeared to be making progress. WTI was down 6% to $99.58, while brent was down 5.6% to $103.39. Both contracts were down around 7% on Monday. US gasoline RBOB futures were down 4.1% to $3.0648. Negotiators between Russia and Ukraine began with a face-to-face meeting after nearly three weeks in Istanbul. According to news reports, Moscow signaled its readiness to unequivocally end operations near Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill. In addition, Ukraine has proposed a 15-year negotiation period on the status of annexed Crimea and has offered to adopt neutral status in return for a guarantee of security, meaning it will not join military alliances or include military bases. Russia's attack on Ukraine and related Western sanctions caused crude oil prices to rise above $100 earlier this month. Crude oil slumped on Monday amid reports that China's financial hub, Shanghai, will enter a nine-day, two-stage quarantine after sharing record levels of daily asymptomatic cases. However, there is still great uncertainty in the crude oil market: the peace deal in Ukraine is not yet guaranteed, the coronavirus issue in China is very uncertain, and the overall supply market is still very tight. OPEC+ will meet on Thursday to discuss future production levels. The group has been under pressure to produce more since Russia attacked Ukraine, but the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE said on Tuesday they should not get involved in politics. On the other hand, the American Petroleum Institute will share its weekly stock report.     Source: Investing.com