Oil prices slide on eurozone anxiety
NEW YORK—World oil prices slumped on Thursday amid fears that the escalating eurozone debt crisis could cut into global energy demand.
New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in August, slid $2.36 to close $95.69 a barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for August shed 46 cents to end the day at $118.32 a barrel on the IntercontinentalExchange.
The slump came as eurozone leaders mooted holding an emergency summit on the continent’s debt crisis and as US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the United States was at risk from Europe’s troubles.
Nervous investors have been selling off Italian and Spanish government debt, threatening the eurozone’s third- and fourth-largest economies, even while European officials are scrambling to avert a default in Greece.
“The market is schizophrenic,” said Rich Ilczyszyn, senior market strategist at Lind-Waldock. “It’s a thin market that got ahead of itself and sobered up a little bit.”
Oil prices had surged on Tuesday and Wednesday before dropping sharply on Thursday, amid mixed signs on the future of global energy demand.
“Jitters over the eurozone’s peripheral (member states’) debt will continue dictating direction” of oil prices, said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at Russian financial group VTB Capital.
