MADRID (ICIS) – European markets and crude oil prices suffered from their own Black Friday when a new highly transmittable variant of coronavirus discovered in South Africa triggered travel bans from countries in the region.
Crude oil futures were available for delivery in January
6% decrease in European afternoon trading extends the
Losses posted earlier during the day.
Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was trading at $ 77.42 / bbl, versus Thursday’s closing price of $ 82.22 / bbl.
Naphtha prices followed suit, falling sharply in Europe – where it’s the raw material for many other petrochemicals – to $ 693 / tonne, down $ 41 / tonne from the previous close – that’s a 5.6% decrease .
European stock exchanges fell around 3% at 11:45 am GMT on Friday, according to Asian stocks.
The STXE 600 Chemicals Index, in which the largest European chemical producers are listed, lost around 2%.
The shares of petrochemicals big names like BASF, Covestro and Solvay were down around 5% from the close of trading on Thursday.
The UK and some EU countries – Germany, Italy, the Netherlands – have banned flights from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The new variant, initially known as B.1.1.529, was detected this week after a sharp increase in infections in the Johannesburg area.
So far, only a few cases have been identified in South Africa, Hong Kong, Israel and Botswana.
Experts fear that the new variant is not only highly transmissible than the Delta variant that is currently dominant worldwide, but could also be more resistant to the vaccines that are supposed to fight the Wuhan strain, which was first discovered in China in early 2020.
South African scientists will meet with World Health Organization (WHO) officials on Friday to discuss the new variant, when it is likely to be assigned a letter of the Greek alphabet to name it.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said Friday morning it would propose to the 27 member countries to ban flights from the South African region.
“The Commission, in close cooperation with the Member States, will propose to activate the emergency brake in order to cease air traffic from southern Africa due to the worrying variant B.1.1.529,” said the President of the Commission, Ursula., On the social network Twitter von der Leyen.
Black Friday: Brent falls sharply
Source: Reuters
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Cover image source: Cris Faga / Shutterstock
