A car is filling gas at a pump station in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province on Monday. Prices of gasoline and diesel are set to see two consecutive drops this week, as global oil prices continue to drop. The price of grade 92 gasoline is expected to drop 0.26 yuan ($0.04) and the price of grade 0 to fall 0.28 yuan in the coming week. Photo: IC

Oil prices extended losses in Asian trade Monday and languished at 17-year lows, with the coronavirus crisis escalating around the world and no end in sight to a vicious price war.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell 5.3 percent to trade at $20 a barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude was off 6.5 percent at $23.

The falls came after the death toll from the pandemic surged past 30,000 on the weekend as cases in hard-hit Europe and the US showed no sign of letting up.

US President Donald Trump said he expected the country to "be well on our way to recovery" by June 1 - dropping his previous target of mid-April.

Oil markets have been plunging for weeks as lockdowns and travel restrictions imposed by governments worldwide to fight the virus strangle demand. 

Even as demand falls, supply has increased dramatically after top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia engage in a price war following a row about whether to cut output to support oil prices.

At the end of last week, Riyadh said it had not been in touch with Moscow about potential output cuts while Russia's deputy energy minister said oil at $25 a barrel was not a catastrophe for the country's producers - signaling the two sides are still far apart. 

There are fears the commodity could fall further as storage tanks around the globe approach full capacity.

The retreat on oil markets comes after a bounce with equities last week that came after policymakers worldwide unleashed massive stimulus measures to prop up the virus-hit global economy.

AFP