Crude oil down on stronger dollar

28 September 2010

Written by John King

Crude oil prices lost more than one per cent in the electronic trading session of the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (September 28th), hurt by a stronger dollar.

By 03:13 Central Standard Time, the November-delivery crude contract had fallen 82 cents to trade at $75.70 a barrel, with international investors refraining from buying dollar-priced assets while the greenback climbs.

Heating oil prices were also down 1.6 cents at $2.106 a gallon, with traders also cautious about fuel demand conditions ahead of this week's inventory reports from the American Petroleum Institute and the Energy Information Administration.

Speaking to Reuters, Stefan Graber, a commodities analyst with Credit Suisse in Singapore, said oil "is perceived to be well supplied and we think a new fundamental impulse is needed for prices to break out of their recent trading range."

Although analysts polled by the news agency expect oil inventories to have fallen last week, gasoline and distillate stocks are set to have increased by 300,000 and 700,000 barrels respectively.

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