Original title: us Oil Sanlianyin fell below the 67 mark, adding new evidence to the slowdown in the global economic outlook.

Us crude oil futures prices narrowed to about 1 per cent in European trading on Monday, but are still expected to fall for a third consecutive day after official data showed a slowdown in refining production and economic activity in major emerging market countries, suggesting that the COVID-19 epidemic is affecting the world's major economies. in addition, there are heightened fears that the global economic recovery could be hampered by the rapid spread of the Delta variant.

As of press time, US crude oil futures traded at US $67.35 per barrel, down 1.56%, while Brent crude oil futures traded at US $69.59 per barrel, down 1.43%.

With the spread of the Delta strain, the average seven-day death toll of COVID-19 in the United States reached 645 on Friday, almost doubling in two weeks and the highest level since May. According to overall data from Johns Hopkins university and Bloomberg, the average number of new infections per day increased by about 66% over the same period, rising to more than 128000 on Friday, returning to the level of early February.

According to the CDC, because more than half of Americans have been vaccinated and nearly 60% have received at least one shot, the death toll is much lower than at the peak of the last outbreak during the new year. In the past week, about 1/4 of the deaths have been in Florida. The state reported a total of 1071 deaths in the week ended Friday, the highest since February.

Kelvin Wong, an analyst at CMC Markets, said the weakness in crude oil prices was likely to be triggered by weaker-than-expected growth data in major emerging market countries. In short, there are growing calls for global economic growth to have peaked.

In Japan, the world's fourth-largest importer of crude oil, many analysts expect the economy to grow modestly in the current quarter as emergency restrictions reset in response to a record case of novel coronavirus infection weigh on household spending. Moody's Corporation expects Japan's third-quarter GDP growth to remain under pressure as spending and production continue to struggle under the impact of the epidemic.

The growth in crude oil demand reversed in July and is expected to slow for the rest of 2021 because of a surge in novel coronavirus infection caused by the highly contagious Delta virus, the International Energy Information Agency (IEA) said last Thursday.

However, Rabobank predicts that oil prices are likely to remain high because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries and its allies are expected to maintain their current trend.

The technical outlook for spot Brent crude is mixed and the oil market opened this week under pressure as speculative "bulls" continued to liquidate as concerns about Delta variants curbing demand for crude oil weighed on prices.

The bank pointed out that looking ahead, the oil market will enter this week with mixed technical conditions, from a bullish point of view.

The spot Brent contract returned to an important psychological level of $70 a barrel when it rose this week, but on the other hand, the market is still below its 20-day moving average.

According to other news, Indonesia expects the price of crude oil to be between 55 and 70 US dollars per barrel from 2023 to 2025.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday that fund managers had net reduced their positions in US crude oil futures and options in the week ended August 10. Speculators also cut futures and options positions in New York and London by 21777 positions to 283601 positions during that period, CFTC said.

Traders cut their open positions in crude oil by more than 18000 on Friday, according to preliminary data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group. At the same time, trading volume fell for the second day in a row, this time by about 155700 contracts.