Prices face selling pressure on China woes

London

COMMODITY prices faced some heavy selling last week as the spotlight fell on the impact of China's stock market crash, while uncertainty over Greece added to the downward pressure. "The idea that a stock market crash could put a hole in China's economy and reduce demand from the world's biggest resource-consumer is adding to the pain for commodities," said CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler.

With prices already downbeat, the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Friday forecast that global oil demand growth would slow in 2016, and that crude production in nations outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) would stall.

In its first estimates for 2016, the IEA forecast that oil demand would slow next year to 1.2 million barrels per day, compared with an ave…