US crude tumbled as much as 3.5% on Friday, hitting a fresh six-week low of $76.17 a barrel. In just nine days, oil prices have sunk 10%.
“We will definitely see some pricing relief on gasoline at the pump,” Tom Kloza, president of the Oil Price Information Service, told CNN on Friday, adding that the relief will be “feather-like as opposed to plunges.”
After a relentless rise, the national average gas price has finally leveled off at $3.41 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s roughly flat from a week ago.
“It looks for now as though the 2021 peaks have been established,” Kloza said.
Lockdown jitters
Unfortunately, one of the catalysts for Friday’s tumble in the market is another ominous development on the Covid front: Austria announced plans Friday to impose a national lockdown, the first in Europe this fall, in a bid to reverse a spike in Covid-19 cases.
The lockdown is raising fears in the oil market of tough new health restrictions…
