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Crude-oil futures fell to their lowest since May 2009 on Friday, briefly dropping below $57 a barrel, after the International Energy Agency delivered the latest reduction in forecasts for global oil demand. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January fell $2.14, or 3.6%, to settle at $57.81 a barrel. On the week, futures have lost slightly more than 12%. Prices are off nearly 25% in the past three weeks.
On Friday, oil changed hands for as little as $57.34 a barrel, and the settlement was the lowest since May 15, 2009. January Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $1.83, or 2.9%, to end at $61.85 a barrel on Friday. On the week, Brent lost 10%. Friday’s settlement was the lowest since July 14, 2009.
Crude losses deepened after the IEA cut its 2015 global oil-demand view by 230,000 barrels a day to about 900,000 barrels a day. Both WTI and Brent crude have now lost more than 45% of their value since a peak in June this year, in what market participants are now calling the “oil shock of 2014”. Oil prices have plummeted this year on the back of the U.S. shale boom, stagnating oil demand growth mostly in Asia and Europe, and the reluctance of large Middle Eastern producers such as Saudi Arabia to intervene to cut the global supply glut.
Earlier this week, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries trimmed its forecast for demand for its oil by 300,000 barrels a day, to 28.9 million a day next year, compared with 29.4 million barrels a day in 2014. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has also lowered its demand forecasts for 2015 in a report this week. “A stronger U.S. dollar and ongoing concern over a projected 2015 surplus maintained a steady downward pressure on prices,” Citi Futures analyst Tim Evans said.
Meanwhile, the impact of sinking oil prices is still reverberating though commodities and financial markets and the fallout is likely to carry over into 2015. Analysts continued to slash their oil-price forecasts. ANZ Research has cut its oil-price forecasts by an average of 24% in 2015 and now expects Nymex crude to average $68 a barrel, and Brent crude to average $71 a barrel, in 2015. “Investment funds have been quick to price-in the downside, with moves exacerbated by the end of U.S. quantitative easing and subsequent strength in the U.S. dollar,” ANZ’s commodity strategist Natalie Rampono said in a report.
U.S. investors with bullish bets have already liquidated 42% of their positions since prices peaked in June, she said.