Oil prices started the trading week with slight losses.

The escalation in the Greenland dispute curbed investors’ willingness to take risks, which put oil prices under pressure. However, the price movements were kept within narrow limits. The price for a barrel (159 liters) of North Sea Brent for delivery in March last fell by 19 cents to $63.94 on Monday. The price of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil for delivery in February fell 14 cents to $59.30.

According to Robert Rennie, raw materials expert at Australia’s Westpac Bank, oil prices are caught between geopolitical risks and increasing production volumes. Recently, among other things, mass protests in the important producing country Iran and concerns about the expansion of geopolitical risks to the entire Persian Gulf region had temporarily driven oil prices significantly higher in the past few weeks.

In addition, the recent escalation in the dispute over Greenland between the USA and European countries threatens with new US tariffs and a counter-reaction from the European Union, which could put a strain on the further economic development of the global economy and the associated demand for crude oil. At the same time, the oil market is considered oversupplied. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently warned of excessive supply after countries in the OPEC+ oil network had kept their output stable.

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NEW YORK/LONDON (dpa-AFX)

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