Oil price dips below $37 US

Oil prices continued their slide on Thursday, with a barrel of the North American crude benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate changing hands down 56 cents at $36.60 per barrel at the close of trading.

Oil has slumped all this week after OPEC announced it was happy to keep flooding the market. That trend continued into Thursday with crude crashing through the $37 barrier.

That's the lowest level of the year, and within striking distance of the low it hitduring the recession, when WTI bottomed out at $33.98 in February 2009.

The loonie was also lower because of oil,falling one third of a cent to 73.39 cents US, a fresh 11-year low. It had risen 0.12 on Wednesday.

In its monthly report for November, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it boosted output by 230,100 barrels a day to 31.695 million a day in the month, the highest since April 2012.

There was a slight pullback from Saudi Arabia, but Iraqi volumes surged.

OPEC predicts non-OPEC supply will fall by 380,000 barrels a day next year as the rest of the world reacts to continued low oil prices.