Crude Oil Futures Settle Sharply Lower

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures ended sharply lower on Tuesday, as global growth worries resurfaced, raising concerns about energy demand.

Recent disappointing data out of China and the lowering of global growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund triggered a sell-off in global stock markets and took a toll of crude oil as well.

Notwithstanding the OPEC-led production cuts that aims to prevent a supply glut in the market, oil prices drifted lower today on likely fall in energy demand.

The weekly oil report from the American Petroleum Institute will be out tomorrow, a day later than usual, due to the holiday on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr Day. The official data from Energy Information Administration is now scheduled to be released on Thursday morning.

Crude oil futures for March ended down $1.23, or 2.3%, at $52.57 a barrel on expiration day.

Crude oil futures for March, the most active contract, ended down $1.03, or 1.9%, at $53.01 a barrel.

With a solution to U.S.-China trade disputes still remaining elusive and uncertainty about Brexit and the ongoing government shutdown in the U.S. continuing to raise concerns about growth, investor sentiment has turned quite negative of late.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its global growth forecasts, citing the threat of a trade war, stalled Brexit talks, the ongoing U.S. government shutdown and a slowing Chinese economy.

The IMF now projects a 3.5% growth rate worldwide for 2019 and 3.6% for 2020, down 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points below its last forecasts in October.

In remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde noted risks to the global economy are increasingly intertwined.

'Think of how higher tariffs and rising uncertainty over future trade policy fed into lower asset prices and higher market volatility,' Lagarde said. 'This in turn contributed to tightening financial conditions, including for advanced economies, which is a major risk factor in a world of high debt burdens. '

Although she does not expect a global recession, Lagarde said, 'the risk of a sharper decline in global growth has certainly increased.'

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