After a brief reprieve earlier this week, oil prices tumbled again on Thursday, approaching a bear market, as fears spread that the coronavirus outbreak in China would depress oil demand, at least in the short term. At 10:52 a.m. EDT on Thursday, WTI Crude was down 2.38 percent at $52.06 and Brent Crude was trading down 2.39 percent at $57.52, both flirting with bear market territory. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, oil prices have lost more than 10 percent, and are now at their lowest levels since early October 2019. Even with Libya’s oil production plummeting by nearly 1 million barrels per day (bpd) due to the port blockade by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, oil prices have seen downward pressure over the past week and a half as fears of oil demand destruction currently outweigh supply outages. Yesterday’s EIA inventory report was also not […]