Tipsheet

Oil Prices Settle at $31.41 Per Barrel, Lowest Since 2003

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at $31.41 a barrel, down $1.75,  a low going back to December 2003.  Also, crude oil may hit $20 sooner rather than later.  

Drivers are enjoying the cheapest gasoline prices in years, with the U.S. prices averaging $1.965 a gallon.

With the recent chaos in China's stock market and the unrest in the Middle East, global turmoil has American drillers stopping at nothing to continue pumping as much oil as possible.  

The markets are positioned in a way where "traders are afraid to be long," said Clayton Vernon, a trader and economist with Aquivia LLC in New Jersey. "The firm push for normalization with Iran has taken the last shred of geopolitical risk out of traders' minds."