From today's Scotsman:
Two-year low hit
OIL & GAS
WORLD oil prices dipped to a fresh two-year low yesterday as dealers continued to bet against any quick action from OPEC to halt a 25-per cent, month-long price slide. Dealers said promises to help stabilise the market by the cartel’s officials were proving empty, and further losses appeared likely.
Brent crude oil futures were trading at $20.79 per barrel, down 20 cents, having sunk to $2.55 earlier - the lowest level for two years.
Simon Games-Thomas, of NM Rothschild & Sons in Sydney, said: "The failure of OPEC to act will in all probability lead to another short-term drop in prices, unless OPEC can pull a rabbit out of the hat in the next day or so."
OPEC’s three biggest exporters, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, called on producers outside the cartel to help rein in output and lift prices out of their current slump.
But so far, there appears to be little impetus from non-OPEC states to join its efforts, and traders have become impatient with the group’s inaction.
The OPEC trio said another output cut was a possibility, due to the sharp downturn in oil demand after last month’s attacks on the US.
Speaking at the cartel’s headquarters in Vienna, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said: "It would be useless for OPEC to reduce production if non-OPEC countries keep producing."
Lawrence Eagles, of GNI Research, said in his daily briefing notes: "Traders took the lack of aggressive determination to do something... as a clear sign of the impotence of the cartel."