peopel think america is heading for a recision
american stocks are therefore losing vaule
peole are selling thm
this means everyone is starting to panic sell
the knock on effect is that other marckets will see a dip just for the sypmpathy
apparently the marckets were closed today in america so no one knows what's going on
and with the saudis pushing for more money and opec needing to release mroe oil things are getting costlier and costlier

the other underlying factor seems to be that the chinese don't want oil prices linked to american $ per barrel as the $ is a bit shot at the moment, but that's the other world economy