The price plunge which began in mid-June when New York oil futures trading around $105 a barrel continued this week with oil touching $80 on Wednesday before recovering to close at $81.78. London’s Brent crude underwent a similar collapse to close yesterday at $83.46. Weak demand: increasing US shale oil production: a stronger dollar; and the refusal of the Saudis and its Gulf Arab allies to cut production combined to trigger the decline. US retail gasoline fell to an average of $3.17 a gallon, the lowest since February 2011. The weekly stocks report will be delayed until Thursday, but analysts are expecting a 2 million barrel increase in US crude inventories.
The IEA confirmed the weakness in the world oil markets this week by cutting their forecast for the increase in global oil demand by this year by 250,000 b/d from last month’s estimate. The Agency now believes that growth in consumption this year will be only 700,000 b/d, but will increase to 1.1 million b/d in 2015 as the global economy improves.
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