NEW YORK: Oil prices resumed their decline on Tuesday after rallying the previous session, while world stock markets edged higher, with biotech shares gaining.
A bounce in oil prices on Monday from five-year lows had helped foster a broadly more positive tone in Asia, but both Brent and US crude oil were down more than 1 percent in early US trading on Tuesday. Brent crude oil has lost more than a third in price since June.
Earlier, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal said on Tuesday Saudi Arabia would only consider cutting production if other countries, including non-OPEC producer Russia, joined in limits,
“The Kingdom is not going to give up market share at this time for anybody and allow producers whether in Russia, Nigeria, Iran and other places to sell to Saudi customers because we cut
our production,” Prince Turki said during a visit to London.
“If there is a reasonably guaranteed oversight of production quotas — if they ever are agreed with and someone can definitively say there will never be under-the-table selling of the oil from these other countries — maybe then I think Saudi Arabia and other oil producers would be willing to cut down production,” he said.
In the energy market, Brent crude was last down 85 cents at $71.69 a barrel, while US crude oil was down 90 cents at $68.10.
Behind the shock of the plunge in oil is a deeper debate about whether developed economies are slipping into a prolonged period of stagnation, or just coming out of the financial crises of the past five years more slowly than previously hoped
Oil prices dip further
