Crude oil prices declined on Monday shedding initial gains as several Chinese cities imposed fresh restrictions amid rising Covid cases.
The commercial city of Shanghai is also gearing up for another round of mass testing after detecting a new subvariant of Covid -- Omicron BA.5.2.1.
At 12.07 pm, the September contract of Brent on the Intercontinental Exchange was trading at $105.65 per barrel, lower by 1.28% from its previous close.
The August contract of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 1.57% to $103.15 per barrel. “NYMEX crude trades modestly lower amid demand concerns on back of resurgence in virus cases in China and some other parts of Asia.