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Article: Opec ministers: oil price needs to support investment.(BUSINESS AND FINANCE)
- Article from:
- The Middle East
- Article date:
- December 1, 2008
- Author:
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The price of crude oil, which hit a high of $147 in July, plummeted to less than $70 this autumn. Now some experts say it could go still lower, to $45 or $50 a barrel, next year, given the prospect of a global economic slowdown. While this has meant lower petrol and fuel prices for consumers in the us, the UK and Europe and helped to ease the drain on household and business budgets already strained by recession, it has also contributed to a dramatic outflow of foreign investment from the Gulf states and other oil-producing countries.
Such a "boom and bust" cycle in the oil price was thought by many to be a thing of the past, as world demand from the emerging ...