Oil crashed past the $30 (£20.85) per barrel mark for the second time in a week this morning, as sentiment on the world's most watched commodity continues to stink.

As of 12:40 p.m. GMT (7:40 a.m. ET) both major benchmarks, West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude, were trading well below the $30 mark, and they have even gone lower than $29.50. WTI leads the losses and has fallen more than 5.6% in trade Friday. At pixel time it's worth $29.44 ($20.47) a barrel.

Brent isn't faring much better, seeing losses in excess of 4.6%. Both benchmarks are now trading at virtually identical levels.

Oil has now dipped below the $30 mark for the second time this week. Brent hit $29.96 a barrel briefly on Wednesday before recovering to close the day at around $30.20 (£21).

Today's drop below $30 looks like its going to stick, and that's one of the biggest worry traders have right now. Many fear this will trigger an even bigger sell-off and make $20, or even $15 oil, a reality.

Oil's seemingly relentless march toward zero is being driven by a few crucial factors. Fears about China are everywhere in the markets, as the country's stock markets continue to suffer in the first couple of weeks of 2016.

All three of China's major indexes closed down by about 3% on Friday afternoon, erasing any gains made Thursday. The Shanghai Composite is down 18% this year, and it has hit its lowest level since December 2014.

The glut of oil created by the OPEC nations, led by Saudi Arabia, is also proving to be a huge challenge to global oil traders. Speculation in the markets that western sanctions against Iran will be lifted at the weekend, has also helped drive prices down today. Iran has vowed to return to pre-sanction levels of production, meaning that another 500,000 barrels per day will be pumped into the market.

Europe's markets haven't reacted well to the renewed slump in both Chinese equities and oil, and all the continent's major indexes are trading in the red so far Friday.

2016 just doesn't seem to get any better.