Oil plunged over 20 per cent Monday after top exporter Saudi Arabia launched a price war in response to a failure by leading producers to strike a deal to support energy markets.
The two main contracts both lost about a fifth of their value in morning Asian trade, with West Texas Intermediate sliding to about USD 32 a barrel and Brent crude to about USD 36 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia launched an all-out oil war Sunday with the biggest cut in its prices in the last 20 years, Bloomberg News reported, after a failure by cartel OPEC and its allies to clinch a deal to cut production.
A meeting of main producers was expected to agree to deeper cuts to counter the impact of the new coronavirus — but Moscow refused to tighten supply.
