Oil slightly lower as growth concerns linger
Published Apr 21, 2013 08:39PM ET
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for June delivery inched lower by 0.05% to USD88.22 per barrel in Asian trading Monday. That comes after oil slid 3.15% last week, good for the third straight weekly decline.
Nymex oil prices have lost nearly 7%, or almost USD6.50 per barrel, since April 11. Oil prices slumped after the International Monetary Fund issued a spate of less-than-encouraging estimates for the world’s major economies.
The IMF cut its 2013 forecast for global growth to 3.3%, down from its January projection of 3.5%. The growth projection for China was trimmed to 8% from 8.2%, while the growth outlook for the U.S. was lowered to 1.9% from 2%.
The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest oil consumers. Oil traders will no doubt be watching the initial reading on U.S. first-quarter GDP due out on Friday.
Elsewhere, Ireland’s Providence Resources said last week it is hoping to recover 350 million barrels of oil off the coast of County Cork. That amount may not sound like much, but Ireland currently imports 100% of the 140,000 barrels per day it consumes.
On Sunday, Norway’s Labour Party gave approval for an impact study that could pave the way for the country to explore for oil in an environmentally sensitive region of the Arctic where 1.27 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be recovered.
Meanwhile, Brent futures for May delivery inched up 0.03% to USD99.53 per barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange.
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Written By: Investing.com
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