Crude Oil Down 5% for Week

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.

rude oil futures fell 5% for the week, closing below $60 a barrel on Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg reported.

Oil prices fell as traders bet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would not follow through with promised production cuts of 1 million barrels a day, Bloomberg said.

The consortium will hold an emergency meeting later this month at its Vienna, Austria headquarters to discuss oil’s decline, Bloomberg reported.



On Tuesday, OPEC members Nigeria and Venezuela said they would reduce output by a combined 170,000 barrels a day. Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, also joined calls for production cuts, Bloomberg said.

Crude futures reached a seven-month low on Tuesday as swelling U.S. distillate inventories and relative geopolitical stability eased supply concerns, Bloomberg reported.

Crude oil futures fell 27 cents to close at $57.75 on Friday.

Oil futures closed below $60 a barrel in four out of five trading days on the New York Mercantile exchange this week.