Oil Prices Continue To Fall

Oil dropped again Friday losing another nearly 3 percent in the past week and down about 50 percent year over year.

Goldman Sachs cut forecasts once again, citing to the increased possibility of the commodity falling as low as $20 a barrel.

“While we are increasingly convinced that the market needs to see lower oil prices for longer to achieve a production cut, the source of this production decline and its forcing mechanism is growing more uncertain, raising the possibility that we may ultimately clear at a sharply lower price with cash costs around $20 a barrel Brent prices,” Goldman said on Friday.

An oversupply of oil and a lack of sufficient storage space should keep prices down. The investment bank estimates that over 240 million barrels of petroleum have been added to storage tanks from January to August and there is currently room for only 375 million barrels to be stored outside China.

Likened to Gas Crisis

But some analysts believe the bottom is near and liken the oil crisis to that of natural gas crisis five years ago which saw prices dropping as low as $3 before reversing course.

Robert Raymond, founder of hedge fund RR Advisors pointed to several recent developments that he believes could be signaling that the bottom is near and expects to sees $65-$75 as a realistic price in the near future.

Goldman meanwhile cut its one-month, three-month, six-month and 12-month WTI oil price forecasts to $38, $42, $40 and $45 a barrel, respectively. That’s down from $45, $49, $54 and $60 previously. It cut its average price forecast for 2016 to $45 a barrel from $57.