(VOVworld) – Prices of crude oil in the US and other markets continued to decrease to the lowest level in 4 months despite a large fall in US crude inventories.

An oil tanker loads up with Iraqi crude oil in this file photo. (Photo: Bloomberg News)

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 49 cents to settle at 44.66 USD a barrel.

Earlier Thursday, the price of crude oil hit the lowest point in the past 4 and a half months - 44.20 USD a barrel.

Consistently high oil output from the US and some of the world’s biggest petroleum producers, coupled with concerns about an economic slowdown in China, have soured investor sentiment in recent weeks despite the Energy Information Administration’s announcement that US commercial-crude inventories fell by 4.4 million barrels in the last week of July.