By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was down on Thursday morning in Asia as the l drove fuel demand fears.

The price of gold fell by 1.44% to $103.44 at 12:31 ET (or 4:31 GMT), and dropped by 1.36% down to $100.63.

CCTV has reported that Beijing was the Chinese capital and reported 48 new COVID-19 cases. To avoid another lockdown similar to the one in Shanghai, the city has begun a mass test program.

Hangzhou will conduct mass COVID tests starting in April. State media reports that 28 was reported by them on Wednesday.

The market was supported by concerns about global tightening of energy resources. This tightening comes after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th and the subsequent U.S. sanctions against Russia and its allies. Russian energy giant Gazprom, (MCX) also fulfilled its threats to stop gas supply to Bulgaria and Poland.

Shell (AS: ) indicated in trading documents that they would not accept any refined oil mixed with Russian products. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:) also said it had declared force majeure on its Sakhalin-1 operations in Russia’s far east.

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s showed a build of 692,000 barrels for the week to Apr. 22. Investing.com forecasts a 2,000,000 barrel build, and a 8.020 million-barrel draw during the week before.

Released the previous day, it showed an increase of 4.780 Million barrels.