*International Institute of Professional Studies, Devi Ahilya University, Indore, India
**Institute of Management Studies, Devi Ahilya University, Indore, India
Online published on 11 December, 2013.
US is one of the major consumer of Oil in the world, and after US, China, Japan and then India come on second, third and fourth position respectively. Out of the total demand of the oil in the world 60% oil is consumed by only 10 countries namely US, China, Japan, India, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Korea and Canada. It indicates the dependency of economies on the oil. Crude oil has become an important input in almost each and every unit that are running in the country including farming, mining and manufacturing. Health of all the developed and developing countries is depended heavily on the price of crude oil price. Crude Oil has been traded throughout the world and there prices are behaving like any other commodity as swinging more according to demand and supply. In the short term, prices of crude oil is influenced by many factors like socio and political events, status of financial markets whereas, from medium to long run it is influenced by the fundamentals of demand and supply which thus results into self price correction mechanism. Crude oil plays an important role in the economy of every country. Present study is attempted to discuss the importance of crude oil price and it‘s role in the economy. The study also highlighted the current trends of overall demand and supply of the crude oil in the world.
