Fighting across Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and Gaza, and an accelerating economy, should mean higher oil prices. Yet crude is falling, Bloomberg reports.

Six years ago, oil soared to a record $147 a barrel as tension mounted over Iran’s nuclear program and the world economy had just seen the strongest period of sustained growth since the 1970s.

Now, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark price, has traded below $100 for 10 days and Brent, the European equivalent, tumbled to a 13-month low.

What’s changed is the shale fracking boom. The U.S. is pumping the most oil in 27 years, adding more than 3 million barrels of daily supply since 2008.

The International Energy Agency said yesterday that a supply glut is shielding the market from disruptions. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and BNP Paribas SA concur.

“North America has pushed out an incredible amount of crude oil that it used to import,” Ed Morse, the head of commodities research at Citigroup, said.

The U.S. imported 7.17 million barrels a day of crude in May, a 26 percent drop from the same month in 2008, according to data compiled by the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistical arm. Foreign deliveries will meet 22 percent of U.S. demand next year, the lowest level since 1970, the agency said yesterday.

U.S. gross domestic product will grow 3 percent in 2015, accelerating from 1.7 percent this year, according to the median forecast from 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Job openings rose in June to the highest level in more than 13 years, firming up the labor market picture for the second half of the year, according to the U.S. government.

The nation’s output is forecast to climb to 9.28 million barrels a day next year, the highest level since 1972, the EIA said. The agency cut its 2014 price forecast for WTI to $100.45 a barrel yesterday from a July projection of $100.98.

Oil markets became more resilient to the threat of global supply disruptions because of “spare capacity” and softer global demand, Francisco Blanch, the head of commodities research at Bank of America in New York, said by phone yesterday. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, has been very reactive to oil price moves resulting in markets that are the most stable since the early 1970s, the bank said in a report today.

Brent crude for September delivery fell as much as 0.6 percent Wednesday in London to $102.37 a barrel on the ICE exchange, the lowest price since July 2013. WTI oil fell 3 cents to $97.34 a barrel at 11:33 a.m. London time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after closing on Tuesday at $97.37 a barrel.

Global Conflicts

Violence flared in Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in early June as Sunni Islamist militants captured towns in the northwest and then pushed toward Baghdad. Clashes between political factions intensified last month in Libya, where oil exports have been choked by political protests.

Israel deployed forces in Gaza last month with the stated aims of quashing rocket fire and destroying dozens of infiltration tunnels. Tension between Russia and western governments has escalated over President Vladimir Putin’s backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.