Oil Closes Below $50, Lowest Price Since May 2005
After rising to dizzying heights this summer, the oil market is suffering a hair-raising drop with no apparent end in sight.
Oil prices fell to their lowest level in more than three years, falling below $50 a barrel on Thursday, after shedding close to $100 in four months [...]

Oil prices have been dropping and could go as low as $45 per barrel next year, according to some projections.
That could ease the inflation burden on economically hammered consumers and businesses and help further retreat gasoline prices, which spiked above $4 per gallon this summer.
Dennis Hoffman, an economist at the Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey [...]

BY WILLIAM SHERMAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
For drivers who know oil now costs less than half its midsummer price, paying $3.50 a gallon at the pump is just more evidence that they’ve got us over a barrel.
Gas has gotten cheaper, but its drop has been downright gentle compared to oil’s freefall. The last time oil [...]