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| Oil prices settle nearly US$2 lower |
| 2008-12-13 |
| Oil prices settled nearly US$2 lower on Friday after the collapse of a US$14-billion rescue plan for U.S. automakers kept Wall Street and oil markets volatile. U.S. crude oil settled down US$1.70 at US$46.28 a barrel, after falling below US$44 earlier. London Brent crude settled down 98 US cents at US$46.41 a barrel. Oil recovered from earlier lows as U.S. stocks pared losses on the possibility that the White House or U.S. Treasury might come through with an aid package for the automakers, after the Senate failed to approve a rescue plan late Thursday. Oil has fallen from record highs above US$147 a barrel in July as the global economic crisis dents demand in large consumer nations. U.S. bank Goldman Sachs on Friday predicted oil could drop as low as US$30 as the credit crunch puts a strangle-hold on the world economy. "The auto bailout plan dying in the Senate is weighing on all markets," said Tom Bentz, an analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. "Thursday's late pullback is looking like another failure on the upside." BNP Paribas itself cut its 2009 price forecast to US$53 a barrel from US$75 previously on Thursday. "The collapse in world oil demand in the fourth quarter of 2008 as the global credit crunch intensified now threatens to push oil prices below US$40 a barrel in the near term," Goldman Sachs said in a research note. |
| Posted by:Fred |