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Asian Oil Price Drop by 5%

Last week it dropped below the market expectations giving a push to the oil price that for a short while.

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In rupee terms, the price of Indian basket decreased to Rs3,131.25 per bbl on compared to Rs3,192.91 per bbl the previous day even as the rupee closed stronger at Rs63.

Other analysts also see a weak outlook for oil prices.

Crude oil prices fell again Friday as the main US futures contract concluded its sixth straight week of losses, in a market awash with worry about the global oversupply.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery settled down 79 cents, or 1.8%, to $43.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest settlement since March 17, when prices hit a six-year low of $43.46 a barrel.

Goldman Sachs analysts said U.S. shale drillers had dramatically reduced the time between committing capital and producing oil, so low prices must be sustained to curtail investments and allow supply-demand rebalancing to occur.

Government data showing U.S. gasoline stocks exceeded market estimates by about 300,000 barrels last week has pushed global oil benchmark Brent to six-month lows and U.S. crude to a 4½-month trough since Wednesday.

“The US has (cheap) crude supply and can keep runs high but the rest of the world is not looking so good…”

The US Department of Energy on Wednesday said crude stockpiles in the world’s top consumer slid 4.4 million barrels in the week through July 31, indicating robust demand.

“Watch out for further oil market volatility around Friday’s jobs report as a strong print could drive the dollar higher and crude lower”, Societe Generale analysts said in a report.

After sitting nearly at $45 per barrel in January, the price of Brent bounced back to more than $69 in May.

Over the past three years, the S&P 500 index has gained 50% while the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has dropped by 50%, with all the decline coming in the past year and a half or so.

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Traders and investors were awaiting the latest weekly reading on the U.S. oil rig count from industry firm Baker Hughes at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) for signs on whether crude production could rise from higher drilling activity.

Crude oil oversupply is not going away