The price of Brent crude oil for the first time since 2004 fell below $ 30 a barrel – RBC

March futures price of Brent crude oil as of 22:25 fell below $ 30 a barrel to $ 29.95, according to the auction ICE. So cheap North Sea oil will not cost since April 2004. On the eve of below $ 30 a barrel for the first time since December 2003 oil has fallen of WTI fell. As reported by Bloomberg, price of February futures has reached the mark of $ 29,93.

The oil market is going through sharp fall in prices in 2015. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal published a poll of 12 banks under which they expect the average annual price of Brent crude in 2016 to $ 50 per barrel. In December, the participants of the consensus forecast assumes that its price will be $ 57. The annual average price of WTI, according to banks, will be $ 48 per barrel, $ 5 less than the previous estimate.

As noted by the newspaper, analysts’ estimates have worsened amid concerns about demand for oil in China. At the beginning of the year the oil price plummeted to 12-year lows after the collapse of the Chinese stock exchanges. During the first week of January, Shanghai Composite Index lost 15%.

On the eve of the British Intelligence Standard Chartered Bank gave the most pessimistic forecast drop in oil prices – to $ 10 per barrel. A number of other banks (Barclays, Macquarie, Bank of America, Merill Lynch and Societe Generale) this week downgraded its forecasts for oil prices in 2016. Barclays lowered its forecast for the average oil price in 2016 for Brent and WTI to $ 37 per barrel. The bank had previously predicted it at $ 60 and $ 56, respectively.

The Russian budget for 2016 had been drawn up at the rate of $ 50 per barrel. On Wednesday, the head of the Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that his ministry is developing a stress scenario, according to which the price of a barrel of oil dropped to $ 25. “We are preparing a stress-test scenario in order to be ready for any surprises. We are now preparing calculations even at the level of $ 25 per barrel “, – he said. This Ulyukayev noted that it was premature revision of the previously approved budget for 2016