Irina Slav
Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.
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By Irina Slav – Apr 21, 2025, 3:45 AM CDT
Crude oil prices began trade this week with a decline amid diminished hopes for a quick end to the war in the Ukraine and the prospect of lower demand amid the tariff turmoil. News of nuclear deal negotiations between the United States and Iran contributed to the trend.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $66.83 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $63.58 per barrel.
“The broader trend remains tilted to the downside, as investors may struggle to find conviction in an improving supply-demand outlook, especially amid the drag from tariffs on global growth and rising supplies from OPEC+,” IG analyst Yeap Jun Rong told Reuters.
The majority of international market observers believe the tariff-driven rearrangement of global trade flows will affect demand for crude oil negatively, even as a number of Asian energy importers seek to buy more U.S. oil as part of efforts to reduce their trade surpluses with the United States to avoid punishing tariffs.
Meanwhile, a second round of U.S.-Iran talks concluded this weekend with the two sides indicating progress had been made.
“Today, in Rome, over four hours in our second round of talks, we made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions,” one senior Trump administration official said, as quoted by CNN.
“I can say that there is movement forward. We’ve reached better understanding and agreement on some principles and goals in these Rome negotiations,” Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Aragchi said.
OPEC+’s decision to add 411,000 bpd in daily supply from May continued to weigh on prices despite suggestions it may be later reconsidered and despite an intention on the part of the group’s leadership to get production control laggards in line by enforcing compensation output cuts. The top overproducers, Iraq and Kazakhstan, earlier this month submitted updated plans for compensatory cuts to their oil production after failing to keep their quotas for months.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina Slav
Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.
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