After hitting a new seven month low of $91.15 at market close on 16 September, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil was $100.34 on the New York Mercantile Exchange in mid-morning trading on 18 September.

On 15 September, US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy while another Wall Street giant, Merrill Lynch, was sold to Bank of America.

Goldman Sachs lowered its three-month forecast for WTI to $115 a barrel from $149 and revised its 2009 price forecast to $123 a barrel from $148 but maintains the market has 'overshot to the downside'.

It adds, however, that if the current macroeconomic concerns become a full-blown global recession, prices could drop as low as $75 a barrel.