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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Crude Oil Settles Lower for Fifth Day in a Row

Kathryn Elizabeth Tuggle

FOXBusiness

Crude oil for August delivery dropped by $1.12 per barrel, or 1.75%, on Tuesday to settle at $62.93 per barrel on fears of a slowdown in economic recovery.

This marked the fifth day in a row that light, sweet crude was down, and is the longest running downturn since Feb. 12. Month to date, crude oil is down 10%, while year to date it is up 41.1%.

Also on the Nymex, reformulated gasoline for August delivery dropped by 0.76 cents per gallon, or 0.44%, to settle at $1.7328 per gallon. Meanwhile, heating oil and natural gas were also down. Heating oil was down by 2.59 cents per gallon, or 1.59%, to $1.6007. The price of natural gas was down by 5.8 cents per million BTUs, or 1.7%, to $3.429.

At the pump, consumers can expect to pay slightly lower prices than they did a month prior. A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline stood at a national average of $2.60 per gallon on Tuesday, while month-ago prices were $2.61 per gallon.

On the Comex, gold for July delivery rose $4.80. per troy ounce, or 0.52%, to settle at $928.80. This marks the first gain for oil in three days. Gold is up by 5.1% year to date.

Meanwhile, silver for July delivery dropped by 1.8 cents per troy ounce to settle at $13.2090. This is the lowest it's settled since May 4.

In London on the ICE Futures exchange, the price of Brent crude fell by 95 cents to $63.10 per barrel.