Brent oil price trading lower, has support around $80 mark

Brent crude oil futures are trading lower in Asia on Wednesday with support around the $80 mark, prices were $79.93 a barrel on the London based ICE Futures Exchange this morning. Yesterday Brent crude dropped 0.7 percent, to settle at $79.91 a barrel.

“Growth of oil demand from developing countries should be the key to recovery of global oil demand this year because demand in the US and Europe is still quite flat,” said Gideon Lo, an analyst at DBS Vickers in Hong Kong. “Oil is likely to find a good support level at $80.”

Oil prices have jumped about 17 percent since early February 2010 on increased investor confidence in this year’s global economic growth, but crude oil demand from the US remained sluggish.

Analysts said markets awaited further signals on consumption from China, the world’s second largest oil user, whose February trade data for February is to be published today.