Eswaran Ramasamy--Global Director, Strategic Oil Market Development, Platts

The global oil market is going through a period of lower prices and everyone is very concerned. The oil market, despite its lower prices, has been relatively stable and declining at a very slow pace. The oil market's stability is because demand-supply is balanced and that global economic performance has not met expectations and this more than anything else has placed bearish pressures on oil prices. While we speak, the implications of a loss of about 20-25% of global crude oil prices, are already beginning to take place: production cutbacks. Independent production in the US has already began to react to lower prices as the higher end shale producers begin to reign in production. And the story continues until markets rebound.