Oil prices slipped on Monday as Wall Street slid more than 1 percent and energy market investors remained wary of growing crude supply, although tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran gave prices some support Brent crude futures LCOc1 dropped 16 cents, or 0.2 percent, to settle at $66.05 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 fell 28 cents, or 0.5 percent, to end at $62.06 a barrel.
“The equity markets are certainly a driving factor behind this slide today,” said Brian LaRose, technical analyst at United-ICAP in Jersey City. “Since the open, they have been hit pretty hard,” he said. Wall Street’s main indexes fell more than 1.5 percent as investors worried about a potential trade war and as Facebook shares dragged down the tech sector. Oil prices have been increasingly moving in tandem with equities. Strong demand, however, prevented oil from sliding further, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “We keep talking about all this shale oil production, but it’s not really showing up that much in global inventories; they continue to be tight,” Flynn said.