The Fed is killing oil & gas, and some analysts are noticing.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Interest-Rate-Hike-Hits-Oil-Hard.html
Oil prices have been slammed over the past week, dragged down by a variety of forces, including soaring U.S. shale production, higher-than-expected output from Russia, and worries about global demand. On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to pile on.
The central bank hiked interest rates by a quarter-point yet again, the fourth time this year. That was largely expected. But the details that market watchers were more concerned with were the Fed’s intentions for 2019. Fed chairman Jerome Powell, in the face of withering pressure from the White House, signaled his intention to hike rates two more times in 2019. To be sure, that was down from a previous plan of three rate increases, but it wasn’t exactly the pullback that President Trump had wanted. Powell dismissed questions about political pressure from the President, saying that “nothing will cause us to deviate from” the job at hand.
… It’s hard to overstate the influence that the Federal Reserve has over the global economy. The rate tightening impacts the macroeconomic outlook of most countries while also affecting prices over everyday items for billions of people.
… The hawkish approach from the central bank has created a series of forces that could negatively impact crude oil. First, oil is priced in dollars, so to the extent that interest rate hikes strengthen the dollar, they push down the price of oil. Second, a stronger dollar means that global investors are pulling their money out of other currencies and pivoting into the dollar. In other words, rate hikes put downward pressure on other currencies.