The growing spread of the COVID_19 pandemic appears to have caused crude oil prices to drop about 3% for the week with West Texas Intermediate crude finishing down 23 cents on Friday at $38.49 a barrel.
The .59% drop on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday only added to the declines earlier in the week. The drop in prices came hand in hand as a record rise in U.S. coronavirus cases indicated some long-term challenges for a recovery in crude-oil demand.
“The oil demand recovery story was dealt a blow this week after the U.S. registered the biggest-ever jump in coronavirus cases, suggesting many states may have to visit regional lockdowns soon,” wrote Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a Friday research note reported Market Watch.
U.S. states, including Arizona, Texas, South Carolina and Florida, saw confirmed cases rise by more than 30% over the past week, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
Brent crude futures on the ICE Futures Exchange dropped 34 cents or .8% before settling at $40.71 a barrel. Natural gas prices were up one cent for a .88% gain to end the week at $1.50 per MMBtu.
Chesapeake Energy finished the week up 7.28% for Friday, gaining 93 cents to end at $11.85 a share. SandRidge Energy added 5 cents for a 4% increase to reach $1.31 a share.
Devon Energy dropped 6.5% or 76 cents to settle at $10.94. ConocoPhillips finished down 4% or $1.71 a share to end at $40.35.
EOG Resources dropped nearly $2 or 4% and ended the week at $48.76 a share. Marathon oil slipped 4% or 24 cents before finishing at $5.74.
ONEOK dropped 6% or $1.89 and finished at $30.81 while Phillips 66 ended down $2 or 3% to hit $68.06. Mammoth Energy dropped 2 cents or 1.5% to finish Friday’s trading at $1.25 per share. NGL Energy Partners was down 20 cents or 5% to end the week at $3.88.
In the Utilities sector, American Electric Power saw a $1.30 decline which figured to 1.64% and settled at $78 a share.
