West Texas Intermediate, Brent Plunge to $45 on Thursday

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Oil futures closed down more than 3% lower on Thursday as doubts persisted over the potential for a crude oil production freeze, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, October West Texas Intermediate crude fell by $1.54, or 3.5%, to settle at $43.16 a barrel.

On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, November Brent crude ended at $45.45 a barrel, down $1.44, or 3.1%.

“A fair amount of the bearishness [for oil] can be connected to recent comments out of Russia, indicating that they have little interest in coordinating with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at the moment,” said Robbie Fraser, a commodity analyst at Schneider Electric.

Meanwhile, October natural gas fell 9.5 cents, or 3.3%, to settle at $2.792 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.