After a brief reprieve earlier this week, oil prices tumbled again on Thursday, approaching a bear market, as fears spread that the coronavirus outbreak in China would depress oil demand, at least in the short term.

At 10:52 a.m. EDT on Thursday, WTI Crude was down 2.38 percent at $52.06 and Brent Crude was trading down 2.39 percent at $57.52, both flirting with bear market territory.

Even with Libya’s oil production plummeting by nearly 1 million barrels per day (bpd) due to the port blockade by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, oil prices have seen downward pressure over the past week and a half as fears of oil demand destruction currently outweigh supply outages.

Yesterday’s EIA inventory report was also not supportive for oil prices, after the Energy Information Administration reported a build in oil inventories of 3.5 million barrels for the week to January 24. Analysts had expected a draw of 460,000 bpd, after last week the EIA reported a draw of 400,000 bpd for the seven days to January 17. CLICK for complete article