Kuwait - KUNA
Price of Kuwait crude oil per barrel went down USD 1.20 to stand at USD 59.13 pb in Thursday's trading compared to USD 60.33 pb on Wednesday, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said here on Friday.
Prices of crude oil were below USD 60 pb in New York in today's trading, the lowest levels since 2009, after Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, had announced that it would not cut its production to keep its quotas.
The global oil markets were affected after OPEC had cut its forecasts for oil demand next year, with a lowest demand since 2003.
They also were impacted by OPEC's announcement yesterday that its expectations for the demand on oil in 2015 might decrease by 300,000 barrels per day to reached 28.9 million bpd. During their meeting last month, OPEC members decided to keep production at 30 million bpd. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday the global oil demand might rise by only 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2015 to reach 93.3 million bpd, a cut back of 230,000 bpd from growth predictions a month earlier.
In its latest "Oil Market Report (OMR)" for November, the energy agency said that the downward revision was based on predictions for lower demand in "the former Soviet Union (FSU) and other oil exporting countries.
The IEA also noted that "oil prices continued to decline last November and early December. Brent was last trading at a five-year low of USD 64.05 per barrel. It said that OPEC's monthly production last month was estimated at 30.32 mbpd, a decline of 315,000 b/d from last October.