Oil prices fell further yesterday after slumping by more than US$10 over the past two days on concern that slowing US economic growth would hurt crude demand, traders said.
New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for next month delivery, dipped US$0.42 to US$134.18 a barrel, after shipping US$4.14 on Wednesday.
That followed a dive of US$6.44 on Tuesday, the sharpest daily decline since January 1991.
London’s Brent North Sea oil for September dipped US$0.21 to US$135.60. The Brent August contract expired on Wednesday down US$2.56 at US$136.19.
Prices have crumbled since hitting record highs above US$147 per barrel last Friday.
“Oil prices fell sharply again yesterday [Wednesday] largely driven by an unexpected weekly rise in US oil and gasoline inventories,” Barclays Capital analyst David Woo said.
The US government’s Energy Information Administration said crude inventories rose by 3 million barrels last week. That confounded market expectations for a decline of 2.2 million barrels.
“The inventory report essentially indicated oil demand in the US is just very poor,” said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.
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