us oil futures declined on tuesday settling below 70 a barrel for the first time since early may “we’ve seen oil prices slide back again as investors look towards the next stage of the us debt ceiling saga and concerns that sticky inflation will likely act as a brake on demand and ergo the wider global economy” said michael hewson chief market analyst at cmc markets uk “output levels which were expected to get tightened during the months of april and may haven’t been as tight as expected meaning that supplies are higher than expected” july west texas intermediate crude cln23 fell 321 or 44 to settle at 6946 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange that was the lowest finish since may 4 according to factset data