Oil prices sank further below $28 early on Monday on fears the lifting of sanctions against Iran will push more supply on to a global market already grappling with overcapacity.
The renewed fall in prices, which sank below $30 a barrel on Friday and hit US stocks, dovetails with Implementation Day when the economic benefits of life unyoked by many international sanctions start to flow to Iran. Those include the ending of embargoes by western powers on oil imports.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, shed as much as 4.3 per cent in Asian trading to $27.70 a barrel, the lowest since November 2003. That followed a 6.7 per cent slump on Friday in New York and a decline of 13.7 per cent for the whole of last week.