LONDON—The downdraft in oil prices showed no sign of abating on Friday.

The main international benchmark, Brent crude, fell about 3 percent to about $61.80 barrel, a five-year low. That dip came a day after the American benchmark, West Texas Intermediate crude, fell below the psychologically significant $60 a barrel level in the United States for the first time since 2009.

The International Energy Agency added to downward price pressures on Friday by cutting its forecast for global demand for crude oil in 2015.

For now, analysts say, there seems to be no safety net for oil prices.

“In the very short term, prices can go lower; the market is weighted to very bearish sentiment,” Richard Mallinson, an analyst at Energy Aspects, a London-based research firm, said Friday.

European stocks fell on Friday, posting their biggest weekly loss since mid-2011 as energy stocks were hurt by the slide in oil prices. The broad Stoxx Europe 600 index lost 5.8 percent for the week. On Wall Street, stocks were lower around midday in New York.

“This is a bloodbath,” said Pierre Martin, a trader at Saxo Bank. “After such a negative week, there’s not even a rebound into the close. The fact that oil can’t find a floor is spooking market players.”

Analysts say a major cut in production would be needed next year to avoid an inventory buildup and to stabilize falling prices. But hopes of a supply cut were dashed late last month when OPEC declined to change its output ceilings at a meeting in Vienna.

Despite the continued fall in prices since then, OPEC shows little sign of uniting to make production cuts. “Why should we cut production?” Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, said Wednesday.

A test of strength appears to be occurring among the Saudis and their prosperous Gulf allies, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and other producers such as Venezuela and Iran, which can much less easily afford a long bout of low prices. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE have about $1.5 trillion in financial assets among them, which is “plenty to meet their spending needs for the next few years,” said Rachel Ziemba, an analyst at Roubini Global Economics in London.