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The concerns about slow recovery of demand continued to drag oil and gas prices down today, despite a series of positive economic data recently announced by countries.

As the early morning of September 4, according to Vietnam time, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the WTI light sweet crude oil delivered in October 2020 was at $ 41.08 / barrel, down $ 0.29 / barrel in the session. If compared with the same time on September 3, the WTI oil price delivered in October 2020 has dropped to 0.64 USD / barrel.

Meanwhile, the price of Brent crude oil delivered in November 2020 was at 43.82 USD / barrel, down 0.25 USD / barrel in the session and down to 0.63 USD / barrel compared to the same time on September 3.

Oil prices on September 4 continued to decline sharply mainly because the market was concerned that the demand of oil would be slow to improve in the context of economic growth of most economies is at negative levels and very hard to recover.

The US Department of Labor has just released employment data showing that in the week ending August 29, the world’s leading economy recorded 881,000 more workers applying for unemployment benefits for the first time. This is the second time that the number of workers applying for unemployment benefits in the US for the first time has dropped below 1 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the insured unemployment rate fell 0.8% to 9.1% in the week ending August 22.

Latest, ADP data also shows that the private sector created nearly half a million jobs in August. Meanwhile, Wall Street economists forecast millions more jobs from the private sector.

Before the COVID-19 epidemic broke out and affected the US economy, the number of workers who applied for unemployment benefits in a week never surpassed 700,000 even during the economic recession of 2008-2009.

However, because of the Covid-19 epidemic, the number of applications for unemployment benefits in the United States increased sharply. A report released by employment and training consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on September 3 shows job cuts in the US from the beginning of the year soared by 231% compared to the same period last year.

The aviation and transportation sectors, which have a large demand for energy, were noted to be the most affected by the Covid-19 epidemic.

Oil prices today are also affected by the US crude production in the Gulf of Mexico has been restored.

In the domestic market, today’s oil and gas prices is as follows: E5 RON92 gasoline price is not higher than 14,409 VND / liter; gasoline price RON95-III is not higher than 15,114 VND / liter; Diesel oil price of 0.05S is not higher than 11,961 VND / liter; kerosene price is not higher than 10,125 VND / liter; mazut oil price 180CST 3.5S not higher than 11,183 VND / kg.