Oil prices fall as market shrugs off China growth pledge, OPEC+ production cuts - CNBC
Crude oil prices today: WTI, Brent fall as China aims to boost growth
Crude oil futures fell for a second consecutive day Tuesday as China's pledge to boost economic growth and OPEC+ production cuts failed to lift prices.
The West Texas Intermediate contract for April dropped 72 cents, or 0.91%, to $78.02 a barrel. May Brent futures shed 57 cents, or 0.69%, to $82.83 a barrel.
The Beijing government on Tuesday set an economic growth target of about 5% for 2024 and announced the issuance of $138.9 billion in "ultra-long" special Treasury bonds to fund major projects.
OPEC and its allies, OPEC+, agreed on Sunday to extend crude production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day through the second the second quarter.
Walter Chancellor, an energy strategist with Macquarie, told clients in a note Sunday that the extension of OPEC+ cuts, which was widely expected, had probably already been priced into the market.
Traders have worried for months that faltering economic growth in China and an abundance of crude produced in the Americas, above all the U.S., will put downward pressure on prices.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: hydropower
Hydropower — electricity generated by turbines capturing energy from moving water — was for many years the primary contributor of renewable energy to the U.S. electricity grid. Its growth was rapid into the 1970s, and since then has offered a stable supply of power, while a declining share of all generation. For many years, hydropower was seen as clean energy and an unalloyed good, but a greater understanding of the impact of dams on ecosystems and wildlife has led to the removal of some dams. As of 2019, hydropower trails wind as a renewable source of power generation.