By Fawaz Karami
KUWAIT, June 24 (KUNA) -- A local oil analyst expected on Friday that UK's exit from the EU may cause a five dollar drop in the price of a barrel of oil in international markets, from USD 60 to USD 55 for the benchmark Brent crude.
The exit may also cause the Kuwaiti oil price to average about USD 47 a barrel for the rest of 2016, said oil analyst Abdul-Samiea Behbehani, in remarks to KUNA in the wake of the jolting Brexit vote.
He expected that UK's exit from the EU would eventually have negative ramifications for oil prices during the remainder of the year and possibly next year.
The earlier expectation for ramping up of oil prices for the remainder of the year tanked completely by today's results of the Brexit vote, he said, expecting that average prices for Brent crude would drop from USD 60 to USD 55 and average prices for Kuwaiti crude would hover around USD 47, a drop from former expectations of USD 52.
Further he said that UK's pullout of the EU was likely to boost speculative trading in oil markets during the second half of the year as the UK would cause anxiety in these markets for the duration of its long negotiations with the EU over its pullout. (end) fnk.ajs