Oil price free fall seen continuing in '09 due to Gulf state debts
ABU DHABI — Analysts expect the price of crude oil to continue to
fall in 2009.
Gulf analysts said oil-producing states have been saddled with debt and
must sell oil at any price.
The analysts said the price of crude oil could drop to
$30 a barrel, severely harming several Persian Gulf oil states.
"If external debt is high and needs servicing, some regional producers
could have a problem, and we may see major downstream and upstream projects
being put on hold," Dalton Garis, an economics professor at the Petroleum
Institute in Abu Dhabi, said.
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Garis told the Abu Dhabi-based Gulf News that oil prices would not
return to the level of 2006 for at least another two years. He cited the
global credit crisis and recession.