Oil Drops on News of Suez Canal Container Partial Movements

Oil prices plummeted after reports that a container ship that had been trapped in the Suez Canal had been refloated. Traders were also keeping an eye on the release of a new futures contract on Monday, with Abu Dhabi kicking off its efforts to create a new benchmark. The Ever Given container ship was partially floated and brought up in the canal with additional tug operations resuming when the tide rises later on Monday.

The canal is still backed up by hundreds of other container, Bulk carriers or oil-laden petrol ships but the news from the movement of the ship immediately sharply dropped oil prices after trading for a little bit in the morning.

In recent days, petroleum prices have wildly swung, as traders and investors have tried to balance the impact of a key trade transit point blockade and a wider effect of coronaviral infections lockdowns.

Hundreds of other containers, bulk carriers or oil-loaded gasoline ships still back up the canal, but the news from the ship's movement dropped sharply in the morning after trading for a little while.

The Suez Canal crisis has resulted in a massive backlog of ships at both ends of the crucial waterway, prompting some ships to bypass the bottleneck by taking the longer, more expensive route around Africa. Tanker rates have risen, increasing the cost of transporting oil around the world.

Brent dropped by 1.9%, while West Texas Intermediate fell by 1.9%. In recent sessions, crude has been hit by increasing uncertainty, with WTI swinging between gains and losses last week.