Oil drops below $130 on concerns about demand
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oil prices fell below $130 a barrel Tuesday on a growing sense that soaring gas and oil prices have cut demand for fuel during the normally busy summer driving season.
U.S. Energy Department data showing demand for gasoline over the Memorial Day holiday period won't be released until next week. But, said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., "it definitely was lower than (previous) Memorial Day weekends".
At the pump, meanwhile, retail gasoline prices rose, but only slightly, leading to renewed speculation that gas may follow the normal seasonal pattern of peaking around Memorial Day, then declining over the summer.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery fell as low as $129.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday, then edged up to trade down $2.34 at $129.85. Prices peaked at $135.09 a barrel Thursday.
Last week's surge in oil prices drove gasoline prices sharply higher just before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend. But those increases appear to be tapering off. The average national price of a gallon of regular gas rose only 0.1 cent overnight to a record $3.937, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
"I think that we're going to see that that is the peak or very close to it," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research Inc. in
Lynch thinks energy investors are selling on recent data showing that Americans are driving less due to high prices — including weekly Energy Department reports that demand for gasoline is falling, a Federal Highway Administration report showing Americans drove fewer miles in March and a AAA survey released before Memorial Day predicting that fewer people would hit the road over the long weekend.
"If the present trends continue, we could be heading for the first annual drop in gasoline consumption in some 17 years," said Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global UK Ltd., in a research note.
If oil prices continue to fall, gas prices may not reach $4 on a national basis as some analysts have predicted. Still, prices are already above $4 in many parts of the country.
Diesel prices also rose slightly Tuesday to a new record national average of $4.768 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. High diesel prices are part of the reason prices for consumer goods and food are rising.
Oil prices were also pressured Tuesday by the dollar, which gained ground against the euro. Investors who buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation when the dollar falls tend to sell when the greenback strengthens. Also, a rising dollar makes oil more expensive to investors overseas.
Investors shrugged off a number of events that could have sent oil prices higher, including reports that crude oil production in
In other Nymex trading Tuesday, June gasoline futures fell 3.35 cents to $3.3625 a gallon, and June heating oil futures rose 1.29 cents to $3.8785 a gallon. June natural gas futures rose 6.3 cents to $11.92 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Photo: AFP