By MICHAEL RICHARDSON
SINGAPORE — Cash-rich China is using a period of relatively low oil prices to improve its energy security and ensure that its economy has the oil-based fuels needed to sustain growth when recovery from the slump takes hold.
Should Japan, which is currently far more reliant on imported oil than China, adopt a similar [...]

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices slipped below $41 a barrel on Friday as data showing a big rise in U.S. unemployment deepened gloom over the outlook for the world’s biggest oil consumer.
U.S. employers slashed payrolls by 524,000 in December, driving the national unemployment rate to its highest level in almost 16 years, a government report [...]

NEW YORK (AFP) – Oil prices rose sharply Monday as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensified and major crude producer Iran said OPEC would hold a special meeting next month.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for February, shot up 2.47 dollars to close at 48.81 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February rallied [...]

It’snot too early to talk about the prospect of $200 oil.
That may sound crazy, because crude is trading more than $100 a barrel below its highs from the summer, when it peaked at $147.
I recently spoke to a group of local energy economists, though, and they weren’t worried about how low prices would go, but [...]

By MARK WILLIAMS
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Retail gasoline fell to a new three-year low Tuesday and in an unprecedented decline, crude oil costs $100 less per barrel than it did four months ago with a U.S. recession eating away at energy demand.
Analysts believe prices at the pump may finally be bottoming out after a precipitous [...]

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 [...]

LAGOS (AFP) – Gunmen captured an oil firm vessel and its crew in a weekend raid off the shores of Nigeria’s volatile southern Niger Delta region, an army spokesman announced Monday.
“Militants suspected to be from Tompolo’s camp seized one MV Thou Galaxy vessel on the Gbaramatu waterway along Escravos (River),” Lieutenant-Colonel Rabe Abubakar, the military [...]

Experts divided on where costs go from here
by Ryan Randazzo - Nov. 15, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
$1.99 a gallon.
Yep, it’s real. Gas prices in Arizona have hit a 20-month low, with a rare few stations offering fuel under the $2 mark.
Declining demand for oil worldwide has helped push down the average price per gallon [...]

The summer was spent testing how deep the pockets of consumers were in a bullish market. Now, it is oil producers who are being tested as crude prices have yet to bottom out.
Opec on Friday agreed to cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day from its 11 members’ quota of 28.8 million. However, [...]

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 [...]