Crude oil set for third week of losses

27 August 2010

 

 

Written by Neil Brunskill.

Crude oil prices were falling on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (August 27th), set for their third week of losses.

After a brief mid-week rally, both crude and heating oil have resumed their downward trend in early trading this morning, with crude down 20 cents at $73.16 a barrel at 02:53 Central Standard Time, while heating oil futures were heading below the $2-a-gallon mark.

Speaking to Reuters, Jonathan Barratt, managing director at Commodity Broking Services in Sydney, said the fundamentals for energy futures are "very negative".

He added that if upcoming US gross domestic product figures are lower than expected, "the environment is so negative that we could see a break of $70".

This week's US demand report from the Energy Information Administration once again showed a rise in fuel inventories, indicating increasing weakness in demand across all fuel categories, including crude, heating oil, gasoline, diesel and propane.

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