Caspian five cannot curb oil prices, says expert

The price of oil on the world market could fall to $25, according to the statements of OPEC and Saudi Arabia, indicating that they are not planning to reduce their levels of oil production, LUKoil head Alekperov told the Gaidar Forum today.

He said that this will be a short-term decrease. According to the forecast of the head of Lukoil, significant fluctuations in oil prices will continue throughout 2015. As an example, he cited the cost of yesterday's changes in prices. "In the last day you notice a 10% variation. This has never happened before," Tass quotes Alekperov.

In late December, Alekperov predicted a rise in oil prices to $80 by the end of 2015, but since the beginning of summer 2014 oil prices have more than halved, at the beginning of this year they are close to the $45 per barrel mark for Brent.

In the course of yesterday's trading on the stock exchange, the ICE futures price for Brent crude with delivery in March 2015 ranged from $48.07 to $52.42 per barrel. As a result, trading closed at $48.27 per barrel, or 3.19% below the level of trading on January 14.

The weakness of the global economy will continue to restrain the growth in oil consumption in 2015, based on the IEA's monthly report on the status and prospects of the global oil market published today in Paris. It is expected that in 2015, if low oil prices are maintained, oil consumption with respect to the global economy will grow in 2014 by 0.9 million barrels per day and will reach 93.3 million barrels per day compared with 92.4 million barrels a day this year.