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Trump expects WTI oil plunge to be short-term

© AP Photo/Evan Vucci

WASHINGTON, April 21. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump believes that the current decline in WTI oil prices, which traded below zero on Monday, is a short-term event that occurred as a result of "financial squeeze."

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"If you look a month into the future, I think it’s $25 or $29 a barrel," he told reporters during a briefing in the White House. "If you take a look at it, you’ll see it’s a lot more a financial thing than an oil situation."

"It’s largely a financial squeeze," he added.

"Saudi Arabia is cutting back, Russia is cutting back, Mexico is cutting back and the OPEC plus additional states are cutting back," the US leader went on. "The problem is: nobody is driving a car anywhere in the world, essentially <…>. Factories are closed, businesses are closed. And so, all of a sudden, we have really a lot of energy to start off with, oil in particular, and then all of a sudden they lost 40%, 50% of their market."

For the first time in the US history, WTI oil prices went into the negative segment on the New York stock exchange. By 16:36 EST (23:36 Moscow time) on Monday, oil prices dropped by $35.97, or 196.88%, to minus $17.7. July futures dropped to approximately $20 per barrel.

OPEC+ countries finalized the deal on crude output production in May-June at an extraordinary meeting on April 12. The final reduction quota for two months will equal 9.7 mln barrels per day instead of 10 mln barrels per day as Mexico assumed a smaller quota than expected. Russia and Saudi Arabia will reduce production on equal terms by 2.5 mln barrels per day from the basic level of 11 mln barrels per day.

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