Investing.com – Crude futures tumbled more than 1%, as President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, sparked concerns that U.S. oil production could expand rapidly in the absence of a stringent focus on curbing the use of fossil fuels.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for July delivery fell 70 cents to settle at $47.66 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent dipped by 47 cents to trade at $50.16 a barrel.
The selloff in oil prices sustained during the later hours of the U.S. session yesterday, continued on Friday, as investors mulled over the prospect of a ramp-up in U.S. output, after Trump announced that the U.S. is withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
The Paris Agreement laid out a framework for countries to adopt clean energy and phase out fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.
Oilfield services firm Baker Hughes on Friday reported its weekly count of oil rigs rose by 11 to a total 733. It was the 20th straight weekly increase in the number of active U.S. oil rigs.
Sentiment on oil has turned soar, despite data from the Energy Information Administration on Thursday, showing that inventories of US crude fell for an eighth-straight week in the week ended May 19, as investors continued to worry about the impact rising U.S. oil production could have on Opec and its allies’ efforts to reduce the glut in global inventories.
U.S crude production rose nearly 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) last week from year-earlier levels.
Opec and non-Opec members last week agreed to extend production cuts for a period of nine months until March, but stuck to production cuts of 1.8 million bpd agreed in November last year.