Oil falls below $70 on US recession fears
My Way News
Oil prices fell below $70 a barrel Wednesday as investors shrugged off a looming OPEC production cut after company forecasts suggested the U.S. may be headed for a severe economic slowdown that would crimp demand for crude.Light, sweet crude for December delivery dropped $2.63 to $69.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by noon in Europe.
Besides the obvious downsides of any recession, cheap oil is somewhat worrying because alot of the alternative options being explored, ranging from bio-petro products to oil shale and tar sands extraction are only competive at the $70 plus level.
A lot of capitol has gone into this sort of projects, and if oil remains below this level they will be economic failures, not only preventing their success this time around, but making it that much harder to attract investment next time oil prices begin to rise. A similar effect happened in the 70s, and at kept investors away from alternatives for a long time.
I suspect that the Saudis, in particular, know this, and are actively trying for just this result.
Agree with this.
I’m in Virginia this week and it’s $2.30 here. Crazy cheap. I was really rooting for $10 oil to get us off our butts and find some technology more efficient than igniting oil on fire to move some pistons, which in turns pushes around a 3000lb chunk of metal enclosing a 180lb person 