Oil prices resume slide after rebounding from 6-year low

In related news, zombies appear in US oilfields as crude plumbs new lows.

This seasonal weakness is compounding a structural oversupply as producers pump out anywhere between 0.5 million and 2 million barrels of crude every day in excess of demand, helping pull down prices by two-thirds since mid-2014.

If Brent is to fall below that price, it would be the lowest price its seen since the middle of 2004 a year when crude was starting to surge from the single digits it touched during the financial crisis of 1998 and when there was talk that the commodity super cycle was just starting.

China ranks 13th in the world in terms of crude oil reserve, reaching 24.65 billion barrels, only three notches behind the United States, which ranks 10th with a crude reserve of 36.5 billion barrels, according to the 2015 statistics of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

There is “absolutely no chance” Iran will delay its plan to boost oil shipments despite cheap oil, Amir Hosseein Zamaninia, Iran’s deputy oil minister for worldwide and commerce affairs, told Bloomberg.

Brent crude’s renewed slide below $40 per barrel was the damning verdict on OPEC’s failure to agree on a number even for what is largely a notional output target, analysts of the British economic research and consulting company Capital Economics said in a report obtained by Trend. “We had gone so far so fast that it was just time”, he said.

“OPEC keeps saying it would cut production if the non-OPEC players do the same”.

And last Friday the International Energy Agency had warned that it sees the global oil glut worsening through late 2016.

“The post-OPEC price decline is less a function of deteriorating long-term fundamentals and more a function of short-term sentiment, momentum, and weather, in our view”, the analysts said.

Brent for January settlement was down as much as 49 cents, or 1.3 per cent, at US$37.44 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE:COG), share price decreased in the last trading session with a previous 52-week high of $35.58.

Once sanctions are lifted, a few million more barrels of oil will flow into the market daily.

The U.S. exported a record 586,000 barrels of crude a day in April, more than OPEC members Ecuador and Libya.

“In view of the aforementioned, and emphasising its commitment to ensuring a long-term stable and balanced oil market for both producers and consumers, the conference agreed that member countries should continue to closely monitor developments in the coming months”.