MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Price of crude has plunged 50% since July's peak

The price of crude oil has now plunged by almost 50% since striking record high levels above 147 US dollars per barrel on July 11. Trading on Friday was below 80 US dollars a barrel as demand declines amid a worsening economic outlook caused by a global credit crisis.

The price dropped 5.61 to 77.05 USD a barrel on London's ICE Futures exchange. In the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for November delivery fell as much as 3.08 or 3.6% to 83.51 USD a barrel, the lowest since October 2007. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that the ongoing financial crisis will erode oil demand and set back investment in new oilfields. In a monthly report published on Friday, the Paris-based IEA said that falling demand "in the face of higher prices is now being perpetuated by weakening economic prospects". The sharp falls came despite news that Opec ministers (the Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries) will hold an emergency meeting next month on the impact of the markets crisis - amid speculation that the crude producers' cartel could cut its supplies to artificially keep oil prices higher. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said that a cut in output would be "wrong for the world economy". "I'm concerned when I hear that the Opec countries are meeting, or about to meet, to discuss cutting production, in other words making the price potentially higher than it should be. "It would be wrong for the world economy ... for Opec to cut production and therefore keep prices high," he said. Opec decided to cut its production of 520,000 barrels of oil per day at its last meeting in September, to sustain oil prices above 100 USD a barrel. Crude prices have since plunged dramatically sending officials from Opec into crisis mode.