By
Associated Press
.
Published: Fri, October 17, 2008 - 1:37 pm
Last Updated: Fri, October 17, 2008 - 1:42 pm
OPEC says it is moving up the date for acartel meeting initially scheduled for mid-November to the end of
next week. Oil prices have been falling sharply on growing signs of
declining global demand.
The pullback comes as a widening economic slowdown forces a
wholesale contraction in U.S. energy demand: Americans are driving
less, airlines are keeping more planes on the ground and businesses
large and small are ramping down operations.
Worried about the financial fallout of the price drop, the
Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries, which controls
40 percent of the world's oil supply, called a special meeting for
next Friday in Vienna, Austria to address the slide. Underscoring
the cartel's anxiety, it moved up the date of the meeting by nearly
a month.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell $1.53 to $71.38 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising as
high as $73.02 a barrel. On Thursday, prices lost $4.69 to settle
at $69.85 a barrel.
Oil is now down $75 - or 51.5 percent - since catapulting to a
record high of $147.27 on July 11th.
Oil Prices Sink On Bleak U.S. Economy News
Those who Recommended this also liked:
Email to a Friend 
Printer Friendly 
Of course it doesn’t help the cause for domestic oil production but I love it. To see the big foreign oil producers worry about the price in reverse of what we worry about makes me feel there may be some justice out there somewhere and it’s coming home to roost.