Crude oil prices dropped significantly at the start of the new week's trading today, Monday, coinciding with increasing concerns about economic forecasts and global economic growth this year, which in turn could weaken global demand for crude oil.

On today's trading front, Brent crude spot contracts rose by 0.53% to about $81.45 per barrel, in addition to the rise in WTI crude spot contracts by 0.47% to reach $77.62 per barrel.

Crude oil prices declined during today's trading due to growing concerns about weak global demand for crude oil this year, especially with the release of many weak US economic data and disappointing earnings from the technology sector, which raised fears about global growth and caused investors to shy away from risk, which played a significant role in weakening crude oil prices.

Also, crude oil prices fell due to the stability of the dollar and the rise in bond yields, in light of expectations that the US Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates by about 25 basis points during the upcoming bank meetings, especially after the release of several statements from Federal Reserve members regarding the interest rate and the necessity to continue raising it to control high inflation. In this context, Federal Reserve member Mester stated last week that inflation remains very high, and the Federal Reserve must take additional steps to curb inflation, adding that the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates above 5% and keep them high for a period of time, despite the Federal Reserve being very close to ending the rate hikes.

Oil is heading for sharp weekly losses, the first in over a month

On the other hand, oil prices are still supported to prevent their collapse by the OPEC+ alliance's cuts in crude oil production, as the additional supply cuts decided by the OPEC+ alliance, which includes member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies, including Russia, are due to take effect from May and may lead to a supply shortage in the markets.

OPEC issues its forecasts for global growth and oil demand for 2023

As for other energy sources apart from crude oil prices, gasoline contracts fell during today's trading by 0.73% to record $2.5564 per gallon. Meanwhile, natural gas contracts dropped to $2.377 per million British thermal units. However, heating oil contracts rose by 0.10% to about $2.4813.