Crude oil prices break out above $75

9 September 2010

Written by John King

Crude oil prices broke three days of losses yesterday and are continuing to rise in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (September 9th).

Despite early losses, the front-month crude futures contract gained more than 50 cents to trade above $75 a barrel as European markets opened, supported by yesterday's demand report from the American Petroleum Institute (API).

After weeks of consecutive inventory builds, the API showed that crude stocks unexpectedly plunged last week as imports declined.

Commodities traders will today await the publication of the Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) latest demand report for a corroboration of the API data, which showed a 7.3 million-barrel decline in crude stocks.

The government-funded EIA data is viewed as the more comprehensive and reliable of the weekly studies and in recent months there have been considerable disparities between the two reports.

There will also be interest in assessing how heating oil demand is faring as the winter fuel season gets underway.

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