Tuesday 18 October 2011

OPEC’s Demand Forecast and the Wobbling Prices


Oil prices witnessed a remarkable wavering on October 12, 2011, as a result of OPEC’s trimmed estimates of Oil demands across the world. It further added that there would be no increases in the demands next year too. 

The morning markets though experienced a fall, letting the crude fall but in the afternoon it rose by 5o cents, and reached at $85.91 a barrel in New York. Brent Crude also witnessed a remarkable inching, and rose to $107.71 a barrel in London. 

Oil prices have been rising since past five days, due to the easing of concerns regarding the US economic recession. Simultaneous hopes on Europe’s efforts to resolve the debt crisis have made the prices ease off too. Walter Zimmerman, analyst at ICAP said that, "The stock market has been leading oil prices around by the nose,"

The stock market is also being used rampantly to measure the economic issues and hopes around the world. Currency trends and economic fluctuations are major factors that affect the oil fundamentals. “Nothing else seems to matter,” said Zimmerman.

OPEC further said that the weak economy across the world was a major factor that took its toll on oil demands. This is typical of developed countries. 

Gasoline prices at pumps remained unchanged, the national average being at $3.40 a gallon, as reported by the AAA. This was in fact 59 cents higher than what was last year.

The coming weeks’ movements of the stock market, will further affect the rise and fall in the oil market. OPEC is the largest oil producer in the world, and has set quotas for its 12 members, to effectuate stable oil prices. It has advised higher production if there is a rise in demand and lower productions if there is less demand. Heating oil was also unchanged at #2.9002 a gallon.

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