New York-traded West Texas Intermediate (WTI) settled down 97 cents, or almost 1%, at $98.53. The intraday low was $95.17, a bottom not seen since the week ended April 8. In just two sessions, the US crude benchmark had lost almost $15 or 14%.
Citigroup says WTI could collapse to $65 a barrel by the end of this year and slump to $45 by end-2023 if a demand-crippling recession hits.
London-traded Brent crude, settled at $100.69, down $2.08 or 2.02%. Earlier, it broke below the $100 mark the first time since April 25, hitting a session low of $98.59. Like WTI, Brent has also lost almost $15, or 13%, over two days of trading.
A cluster of economic data of late has suggested that the United States may be headed for an economic slowdown - possibly a recession - as the Federal Reserve embarks on the most aggressive rate hikes in a generation to tame inflation roaring at 40-year highs.
A closely-watched gauge of the US services sector fell to its lowest in 20 months in June.
Separately, the US Labor Department signaled that the red-hot labor market may be starting to cool. Job openings, as measured by its monthly survey, fell in May, to a level of 11.254 million that is still high by historical comparison.
The job openings data came ahead of Friday’s more important June non-farm payrolls report, which is expected to show a smaller jobs growth compared with May. Economists say some 268,000 payrolls were probably added last month - versus the 390,000 in May - holding unemployment at 3.6% for a third straight month. A jobless rate of 4% or below is seen by the Federal Reserve as full employment.
“While our view remains that higher consumer prices are required to balance the oil market this summer, we acknowledge that significant and large shocks continue to distort fundamentals,” Goldman Sachs said in an energy market outlook.
A rocketing dollar ahead of more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, or Fed, has also shaken the roots of the energy rally seen since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February and the resulting sanctions on Moscow.
The Dollar Index, which pits the greenback against six major currencies, continued its ascent from overnight, leaping to above 107, its highest since December 2002. The dollar has rallied with few stops since November last year on bets of aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, or Fed, which has just started delivering on those expectations.
The drone of recession talk is expected to get louder across the United States after the Atlanta division of the Federal Reserve forecast last week a second straight quarter of economic decline for the year. The Commerce Department officially reported a 1.6% economic contraction in the first quarter.
The Federal Reserve, in minutes of its June policy meeting released on Wednesday, said it saw a real danger of high inflation becoming entrenched in the US economy and the only way to balance runaway prices with growth was to have appropriate interest rate hikes.
The central bank is expected to push ahead with another three-quarter percentage point interest rates hike this month, potentially taking key lending rates to between 2.25% and 2.5% range from the 0 - 0.25% range they stood at in February.