NEW YORK: Oil prices fell Tuesday flirting with the 90-dollar mark to reach new seven-month lows amid turmoil on the financial markets which could spur lower energy demand, traders said. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October, plummeted 4.56 dollars to close at 91.15 dollars a barrel. London's Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November tumbled to 89.22 dollars, a seven-month low and a fall of 3.16 dollars. OPEC on Tuesday cut its world oil demand growth forecast for 2008 to 1.02 percent from 1.17 percent previously, in the face of falling demand already occurring in the United States, the world's biggest energy consumer. The price of crude oil has now plunged by 10 dollars in the last two sessions to lose 38 percent since striking record highs above 147 dollars in July.
Crude oil dropped "for reasons that have very little to do with the underlying fundamentals," said Mike Fitzpatrick, from MG Global. "Prices of assets of all classes continue to be driven down by efforts to raise cash and avoid risk."
