The volatility of international oil markets hit home again earlier this week, as crude prices tumbled to their lowest levels in more than a year.
Just a couple of weeks ago, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices — North America’s benchmark for crude oil — were around $75 US a barrel. This week, prices skidded to around $66 US a barrel under the weight of ongoing market uncertainty.
“I think it’s fair at this stage to call it an utter bloodbath,” Rory Johnston, a Canadian energy analyst and founder of oil market research company Commodity Context, said on Tuesday, referring to the recent price plunge.
“There are both fundamentally justified reasons for concern, but at the same time, I think that the voraciousness and pace of the price declines that we’ve seen are not at all justified by the pace or change of the fundamentals that we’re seeing.”
Some market watchers …