MOSCOW, January 13 (Sputnik) – The prices of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the US oil benchmark, and Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, hit record lows not seen since April 2009 on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported.
The price of WTI has fallen below $45 per barrel, while in June it was above $100. The price of Brent crude has fallen 4.12 percent at $44.79 per barrel.
On Monday, US investment bank Goldman Sachs published its oil forecast for 2015, which said that over the next six months, the price of WTI could slide to $39 per barrel and the price of Brent may fall to $43 over the same period of time.
Analysts believe that the steep decline in oil prices is being caused by an oversupply in the energy market and an increase in oil extraction in the United States, where stockpiles reached 384 million barrels in the week ending January 9, up from 306.2 million barrels, according to Bloomberg estimates.
Oil prices have been declining since the summer amid an oversupply in the market. The price of Brent crude has fallen by over 30 percent in the past three months. The last time oil prices fell so sharply was in 2008, when it crashed from $145 to $40 barrel, though it rebounded fairly quickly in 2009.
