Crude prices won't dip below US$50, says world's top trader

London

VITOL Group, the world's biggest independent oil trader, said crude prices won't dip below US$50 a barrel for sustained periods because that's a level some producers need in order to invest in new supplies.

"We still subscribe to the likelihood that over time prices still have to go back up again because you still need to invest," chief executive officer Ian Taylor said in an interview at the FT Commodities Global Summit on Tuesday. "People won't invest unless they can make the upstream business work and it's not just US shale, at US$50 a barrel it doesn't work."