Oil prices continue slumping after IEA forecast

NEW YORK (AP) — The rout in oil prices advanced today after the International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for global oil demand next year.

In its monthly oil report, the agency said global oil demand in 2015 will grow by 900,000 barrels a day — 230,000 less than previously forecast — to 93.3 million.

"While demand growth is still expected to gain momentum in 2015 from 2014, the acceleration is now looking more modest than previously foreseen, in line with the ever-more tentative pace of the global economic recovery," the IEA said.

The benchmark U.S. oil price tumbled more than 3 percent, at one point dropping to $57.34, the lowest intraday price since May 13, 2009, when the global economy was still in recession. Around midday in New York, it was down $2.063, or 3.4 percent, at $57.90. Brent, the international standard, was down $1.72, or 2.7 percent, at $61.96.

The IEA said several years of record high prices have "induced the root cause" of the rout in oil prices in recent months