West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas light sweet, has dropped to $19.59, marking an 18-year low. The crude was trading $28.18 last week, but the price fell dramatically on Thursday 9 April and after several days of rebound continued to decline.
In the meantime, Brent Crude is trading at $28.75 in London, and Russian Urals is trading at $28.55, while OPEC basket goes for $21.18.
The news comes as the International Energy Agency forecast that global oil demand will sink by a record 9.3 million bpd year-on-year in 2020. The forecast also noted that prices are expected to rebound slowly in the second half of the year.
OPEC Crisis
The tensions around the oil markets escalated in March when Riyadh flooded the market with cheap oil due to the failure of OPEC+ to agree on production cuts.
On Sunday, however, OPEC and non-OPEC countries reached a new agreement to slash oil production. According to the pact, in May, oil production will be cut by 7.7 million barrels a day for six months, until 31 December. Starting in January next year, output will be reduced by 5.8 million barrels per day until April 2022.