From Wall Street Journal
U.S. oil prices tumbled to their worst losses in a month Friday, bringing a six-week winning streak to an end on signs that the world’s biggest exporters may fail to complete a deal that would cap output.
Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the kingdom will freeze its oil output only if Iran and other major producers agree to curb theirs. That makes a tentative deal between Saudi Arabia, Russia and others to cap output look much less likely, weakening one of the major sources of support for a rally that had pushed oil prices up 50% in about a month, brokers and analysts said.
U.S. prices are now off more than 11% since they settled at a four-month high on March 22, and global prices are down more than 7% from then. Oil spent most of February and March rallying at a faster pace than any stretch since its recovery from the financial crisis, but analysts and traders repeatedly warned that a deal between the world’s biggest producers was tenuous at best, and that the oversupply that had crashed the oil market for two years had not abated.
