Oil was lower in Asian trade on Wednesday concerns that Greece may face difficulties delivering on tough economic reforms after clinching a huge bailout from its eurozone partners, analysts said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, was down 45 cents at $105.80, while Brent North Sea crude for April delivery shed 55 cents to $121.11 in morning trade.
“There are concerns that Europe will continue to struggle with this debt crisis,” said Mr Ker Chung Yang, commodities analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
After weeks of negotiations, European Union and Greek officials reached an agreement Tuesday for a €237-billion ($310 billion) rescue package that saves Greece from a messy debt default.
Greek government officials have however warned that EU demands for tough fiscal reforms in the country would mean a heavy workload and controversial constitutional changes.
Athens has until the end of the month to approve another batch of spending cuts of over €3 billion tied to the rescue and is called on to amend the constitution to ensure that priority goes to debt repayments.
The situation in West Asia was also bearing down on the market as crude producer Iran today denied UN inspectors probing its nuclear weapons activities access to a key military site.
Keywords: Oil, Asia, Greece, Brent crude