Brent price dropped to $78.68 per barrel

On Monday, oil prices have decreased on growing expectations that the US, China and Japan will start selling raw materials from their reserves to lower energy prices and curb inflation, Interfax reports.

Earlier it was reported that US President Joe Biden was considering selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). It also became known last week that Beijing was getting ready to do a similar step.

Last weekend, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported that Tokyo might make a joint statement with Washington on the matter next week.

Japanese legislation does not allow the sale of oil from reserves to lower prices, however, according to the newspaper, the reserves of both the state and the private sector exceed the minimum specified by law. Sources of the newspaper note that the country's authorities are considering selling part of the excess reserves.

Brent January futures price amounted to $78.68 per barrel, which is $0.21 (0.27%) below the price at the close of the previous session. As a result of trading on Friday, these contracts fell by $2.9 (2.35%) to $78.89 per barrel.

WTI January futures cost $75.82 per barrel, which is $0.12 (0.16%) below the final value of the previous session. At the close of trading on Friday, the value of these contracts dropped by $2.47 (3.2%) and amounted to $75.94 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the introduction of new quarantine restrictions in Europe shows that the growth rate of global oil demand may turn out to be weaker than expected, and this makes some experts doubt that the United States will still resort to selling raw materials from the SPR.

Let us remind you that the United States turned to Asian countries with a request to open oil reserves. India has rejected a request from the administration of US President Joe Biden to consider the possibility of freeing some of the oil from strategic reserves for sale.