By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Crude oil prices slid on Thursday after data showing another rise in the number of Americans claiming jobless benefits, which sowed fresh doubt about the sustainability of fuel demand in the U.S.
The numbers came on top of warnings that the coronavirus is spreading more deeply into midwestern states that also account for a large part of U.S. gasoline demand, even as the pandemic starts to show signs of easing in the South and West of the country.
By 11:25 AM ET (1525 GMT), U.S. crude futures were trading below $40 a barrel for the first time in over two weeks, down 3.4% at $39.87 a barrel. The international benchmark Brent was down 2.7% at $42.90 a barrel.
Both markers had been little changed overnight but began to slide after a double-whammy showing a rise in both initial and continuing jobless claims. The latter with a one-week lag). Those numbers counted for more than the largely historical, but nonetheless spectacular, announcement that the U.S. economy shrunk by 9.5% in the second quarter, the most ever recorded.
Warning signs had already been in the market after futures refused to rally much on the back of a much-larger-than-expected draw in U.S. crude inventories on Wednesday.
With anecdotal reports of sharply reduced Chinese buying, due to weak refining margins, prolonged port congestion, severe flood and limited crude import quotas, there are big question marks over the two biggest regions for crude demand.
Refining margins are also a problem in the U.S. Gasoline RBOB futures slumped as low at $1.1345 a gallon on the economic data, before recovering to $1.1770. According to Paul Sankey of Sankey Research. He estimated Thursday that 2 million barrels a day of refining capacity could be shut down in August due to inadequate margins.
The collapse in front-month futures prices has now brought the futures structure into contango, in which longer-dated contracts trade at a premium to short one. That’s partly because traders are anticipating the extra 2 million barrels a day that OPEC+ members are due to start producing from next week. Previous announcements by Saudi Arabia and others have indicated that not all of that will hit global markets immediately, but a spate of localized outbreaks of Covid-19 from Australia and China to Japan and Spain have all jeopardized the ability of the world market to absorb the extra output.