U.S. Recession Fears Put Oil Prices On Course For Significant Weekly Drop

Fears of a slowdown in the U.S. economy have pressured crude oil prices, setting them for what could end up being their worst weekly performance in five weeks. The slide began on Wednesday and accelerated on Thursday, after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank would continue with its rate hikes as a means of controlling inflation, signaling these hikes will be large and possibly more frequent than the ones deployed so far.

"If - and I stress that no decision has been made on this - but if the totality of the data were…