Daily Times

Oil prices fell on Friday as markets digested big swings earlier in the week that have left both major benchmarks facing a second weekly loss and largely shrugged off a warning about tightness in spare capacity.

Brent crude dropped 35 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $74.10 a barrel by 0657 GMT. On Thursday it gained $1.05 a barrel, rebounding from a session low of $72.67. It is heading for a weekly fall of nearly 4 percent.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude edged down 12 cents to $70.21 a barrel, after falling 5 cents in the previous session. It is heading for a weekly decline of nearly 5 percent.

It has been a wild week for oil prices with both the main benchmarks suffering heavy losses on Wednesday as traders focused on the return of Libyan oil to the market amid concerns about a China-US trade war.

Published in Daily Times, July 14^th 2018.