Oil falls on demand worries over Shanghai’s new partial lockdowns

TOKYO: Oil prices fell on Friday but still hovered near three-month highs, with fears over new COVID-19 lockdown measures in Shanghai outweighing solid demand for fuels in the world’s top consumer United States.

Brent crude futures for August was down $1.01, or 0.8%, at $122.06 a barrel as of 0141 GMT after a 0.4% decline the previous day. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for July fell 98 cents, or 0.8%, to $120.53 a barrel, having dropped 0.5% on Thursday.

Still, with prices rallying over the last two months, Brent was on track for a fourth consecutive weekly gain and WTI was set for a seventh straight weekly increase. Both benchmarks on Wednesday marked their highest closes since March 8, when they hit their highest settlements since 2008.