Crude oil is sliding

Crude oil is back below $60 per barrel.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell more than 2% to as low as $59.60 on Friday morning.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell about 2.5% to around $62.66 a barrel.

On Wednesday, weekly data from the Energy Information Administration showed that US oil inventories shrank for a seventh straight week last week.

The data showed that at the same time, stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, a major delivery point, swelled by 112,000 barrels.

Around 1:00 p.m. ET, driller Baker Hughes will release the latest weekly count of US oil and gas rigs. The oil rig count has fallen for 27 straight weeks now.

Here's a chart showing the slide in WTI on Friday:

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