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Crude oil plunge good for China economy: Analysts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-03 17:53

An overnight fall in the crude oil price on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYME) is a good news for China's economic development and its industries, market analysts said.

The price of oil plunged more than $5 on the NYME on Tuesday after producers said Hurricane Gustav had wrought less damage than feared to Gulf of Mexico energy facilities.

The gulf is a major energy production location of the United States, providing 27 percent of the nation's crude oil and 20 percent of its natural gas.

Forecasters expected earlier that Gustav, the first storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, would pose a serious threat to offshore oil and gas installations in the gulf at the end of August. Its effect to oil production facilities proved minimal.

In reaction to this, the contract price of light sweet oil for October dropped $5.75 or 5 percent from Monday to close at $109.71 a barrel on Tuesday. It touched a five month low of $105.46 in intra-day trading.

The drop was accompanied by a slowing global economy that started this year and dragged down oil demand and consumption. The price of crude dropped about 26 percent from record $147.27 per barrel on July 11.

The latest fall indicated there was still room for the price to decrease and this would benefit China's economy to a certain extent, domestic market analysts said.


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