The price of brent crude oil futures has dropped by 1.29 percent, leaving it at $49.89 per barrel. Reuters reports that the decline is blamed on economic troubles in Asia and the strengthening US dollar.
Despite this, US crude oil is similarly down by 1.3 percent, standing at $48.43 per barrel.
"A strong dollar is helping bring prices down as well as fairly weak data from Asia," says a spokesperson for Freight Investor Services (FIS) in Dubai.