Monday saw a drop in oil prices of more than $1 a barrel, with Brent falling below $90, as Middle East tensions decreased following Israel's withdrawal of further troops from southern Gaza and its commitment to new negotiations on a possible six-month truce.
By 00:53 GMT, Brent oil futures had dropped $1.70, or 1.9%, to $89.47 per barrel. The price of a barrel of U.S. West Texas Intermediate oil was $85.29, down $1.62 or 1.9%.
According to IG market analyst Tony Sycamore, Israel's announcement that it has withdrew all but one brigade of its forces from the Southern Gaza Strip looks to have been the impetus. This is probably due to mounting international pressure and an attempt to ease tensions following the death of key Iranian commanders in Syria last week.
In an effort to defuse tensions in the Middle East that caused oil prices to spike by more than 4% last week due to fears of supply interruption, Israel and Hamas dispatched delegations to Egypt for new negotiations on a possible truce in advance of the Eid holidays.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared on Sunday that his country is prepared to deal with any situation that can occur with Iran, after Tehran's promise to take revenge for the April 1 killings of Iranian generals.
Following a tightening heavy oil supply, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, increased official selling prices for all crude grades to Asia in May, as anticipated.
At least one contractor was killed on Saturday when fire broke out on an offshore platform run by Pemex, the national oil corporation of Mexico. This follows Pemex's request in April for its trading unit to halt crude shipments of up to 436,000 barrels per day.
However, in its base case scenario, which assumes existing strong demand, no more geopolitical shocks to the oil supply, and that rising spare capacity would push OPEC+ to raise output in the third quarter, Goldman Sachs analysts estimate Brent to continue below $100 per barrel.
According to a data released by Baker Hughes on Friday, the number of oil rigs in the US increased by two to 508 last week while the number of gas rigs decreased by two to 110, the lowest since January 2022.
The better-than-expected U.S. employment data on Friday suggests that the economy was doing well at the end of the first quarter and might postpone this year's expected interest rate reduction from the Federal Reserve.
Strong U.S. economic statistics and a solid labor market may lead the Fed to consider rate reduction, according to independent economist Tina Teng of Auckland.
In order to determine the economic health of the two countries that consume the most oil globally and to get more hints about when the Fed may cut interest rates, investors will be closely examining consumer price index data from the United States and China that is expected later this week.