Singapore

DESPITE a sharp rally in crude prices since mid-January this year, Deutsche Bank sees oil prices falling back to US$60 and below per barrel by year-end, on the back of a strengthening US dollar, high US oil production as well as low oil production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), which produces about 40 per cent of the world's crude oil.

At a media briefing on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank's global head of commodities Michael Lewis said the bank forecasts international crude benchmark Brent and its US counterpart West Texas Intermediate (WTI) trading respectively at around US$60 and US$57.50 per barrel by end-2015. As at 10.05pm Singapore time on Wednesday, Brent and WTI were trading at US$65 and US$58.70 per barrel respectively.