Oil plunges to 14-month low
london — Oil prices fell on Tuesday after reports of swelling inventories and forecasts of record US and Russian output combined with a sharp sell-off in stock markets as the outlook for global growth deteriorated.
US crude oil dropped $2.04, or 4.1 per cent, to a low of $47.84, its weakest since September 2017. It recovered to around $49.28, down 60 cents, by 1420 GMT. North Sea Brent lost $2.41, or 4.0 per cent, to $57.20, a 14-month low. Brent last traded around $59.01, also 60 cents lower.
Both oil benchmarks have shed more than 30 per cent since early October due to swelling global inventories.
World stock markets tumbled on Tuesday as fears about a slowing global economy gripped investors, just as the US Fed looked set this week to deliver another interest-rate hike. —
london — Oil prices fell on Tuesday after reports of swelling inventories and forecasts of record US and Russian output combined with a sharp sell-off in stock markets as the outlook for global growth deteriorated.
US crude oil dropped $2.04, or 4.1 per cent, to a low of $47.84, its weakest since September 2017. It recovered to around $49.28, down 60¢, by 1420GMT.
North Sea Brent lost $2.41, or 4 per cent, to $57.20, a 14-month low. Brent last traded around $59.01, also 60¢ lower.
Both crude oil benchmarks have shed more than 30 per cent since early October due to swelling global inventories.
World stock markets tumbled on Tuesday as fears about a slowing global economy gripped investors, just as the US Federal Reserve looked set this week to deliver its fourth interest-rate hike of the year.
Investor confidence is deteriorating with more fund managers expecting global growth to weaken over the next 12 months, the worst outlook in a decade, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s December investor survey showed.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.8 per cent after US stocks dropped to their lowest in more than a year. “A large part of the move is due to a broader
market sell-off, with both US and Asian equity markets coming under pressure,” said commodities strategist Warren Patterson at Dutch bank ING in Amsterdam.
“Specifically for the oil market, there are no clear signs yet of the market tightening.”
Oil production from seven major US shale basins is, by the year-end, expected to climb to more than eight million bpd for the first time, the US Energy Information Administration said. Inventories at the US storage hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for the oil futures contract, rose more than one million
barrels from December 11 to 14, traders said, citing data from market intelligence firm Genscape. The United States has surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer, with total crude output climbing to a record 11.7 million bpd. —