Oil sheds more than 3% despite drop in US inventories

Oil prices deepened losses today, amid mounted concerns about the Chinese virus, while shrugging off the US crude inventories data, which fell more than expected.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed today that the US crude inventories fell by 400K barrels during past week, lower than forecasts of rise by 0.5 million.

Which came in contrast to the American Petroleum Institute (API) preliminary data yesterday, which showed crude inventories rose by about 1.6 million barrels during same period.

Otherwise, China confirmed hundreds of infected cases of the deadly Coronavirus, and the death toll increased to 17, several other countries also announced cases.

At 18:37 GMT, WTI crude lost 2.7% to $55.2 a barrel, after hitting a day high of $56.2 and a low of $54.7.

Brent dipped 2.8% to $61.4 a barrel, with a high of $62.6 and a low of $61.2.