KUALA LUMPUR (March 13): Another round of sector-wide sell-off occurred in oil and gas stocks today, tracking the market-wide rout and as oil price is set for its biggest weekly drop in two decades.

At 11am, Brent crude oil price was trading 1.41% lower at US$32.75/bbl, following news that United Arab Emirates is slated to join the oil price war with plans to increase production by another 1 million barrels per day.

The Bursa Malaysia Energy Index fell 8.02% to 695.4 points, with losses occurring for almost all counters in the sector including field operators, upstream and midstream services companies, refiners, petrochemical companies and fuel retail companies.

The sell-off has brought most counters to multi-year lows.

The actives were led by Sapura Energy Bhd (down 1 sen to 10 sen), KNM Group Bhd (down 2 sen to 11.5 sen) and Velesto Energy Bhd (down 1.5 sen to 15.5 sen).

Meanwhile Petronas-linked counters and other sector heavyweights were among the biggest losers of the O&G stocks.

Excluding Petronas counters, the losers were Yinson Holdings Bhd (down 46 sen or 7.42% to RM5.74), Dialog Group Bhd (down 26 sen to 8% to RM2.99), Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd (down 25 sen or 7.15% to RM3.25), Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd (down 20.6 sen or 11.35% to RM1.61), and Hengyuan Refining Co Bhd (down 21 sen or 7.03% to RM2.78).

The rout, starting with failed talks between OPEC-led Saudi Arabia and Russia to deepen production to stabilise prices, led to Saudi planning to pump more oil in order to suppress prices further to squeeze its competitors out and bring its colleagues back to the negotiation table.

Reuters reported that oil prices fell on Friday for a third day, with Brent crude set for its biggest weekly drop since 1991 and US crude heading for the worst week since 2008 as panic about plunging demand from the coronavirus outbreak grips the market.