The oil price comes off the boil again

The oil-price rally has come unstuck, with Brent crude falling back by 12% so far this month to hit a two-month low. 

The oil market is “coming back to reality”, Eugen Weinberg of Commerzbank told Joe Wallace in The Wall Street Journal. US oil futures fell below zero in April after lockdowns laid waste to global oil demand. Brent Crude hit an 18-year low that month at a little over $19 a barrel, but then rallied 135% through the end of August to top $45 a barrel. Yet that rally has now come unstuck, with Brent falling back by 12% so far this month to hit a two-month low earlier this week.

American petrol demand has flatlined at around 85% of pre-pandemic levels, dashing hopes of a return to normal, says Julian Lee on Bloomberg. Chinese demand is more robust, but the country accumulated vast stockpiles of fuel when prices plunged earlier in the year.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.