Oil prices fall due to worries about Covid-19 variants and changes to China’s import rules

Oil prices fell on Monday due to concerns over fuel demand caused by the spread of Covid-19 variants and changes to import rules in China, which offset expectations of tight supplies through the rest of the year. Covid-19 cases continued to rise over the weekend, with record daily increases and lockdown extensions in some countries. Simultaneously, China’s crackdown on the misuse of import quotas combined with the impact of high crude prices could see China’s growth in oil imports sink to its slowest in two decades this year, despite an expected rise in refining rates in the second half.