Oil keeps slipping amid supply fears

Robert Lea, Evening Standard In London, Brent crude traded down $2.04 at $115.82, its latest sizeable one-day reverse. Four weeks ago US light crude hit an all-time high of $147.27. Today it was off $2.06 to $117.96. In equity market terms that puts the oil price into a , normally defined as a slide in an index of a fifth or more from a recent peak. Today's falls in crude price indicate just how weak sentiment on oil has become - or, as some say, how strong the sellers have become in forcing down the oil price to their own speculative ends. The latest falls come despite news from volatile oil-producing areas that normally sends the oil price spiking. Notwithstanding a backdrop of political instability in two of the world's major producing countries, Iran and Nigeria, civil war has broken out in Georgia and dissidents have... [read full story]