Brent crude futures for March delivery fell $2.06, or 2.3%, to $86.13 a barrel at settlement, and US crude lost $1.49, or 1.8%, to $80.13 a barrel.
The activity of US companies also declined this month for the seventh month in a row, but the speed of decline decreased in the manufacturing and services sectors for the first time since September, and raised corporate confidence with the start of 2023.
As Edward Moya, an analyst at OANDA, said in a document: “The (US) economy may still witness the movement of capital from one sector to another, and some dealers in the energy sector are still skeptical about the recovery in demand for crude from China during this quarter.”
-According to the average forecasts of economists in a poll conducted by Reuters, the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will grow in the new year by half of their growth rate in the last year, with their oil revenues affected by an expected global decline.
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