Crude pares early losses

Prices end higher after dropping more than 3% earlier

Crude oil pared earlier losses and ended higher on Tuesday, 21 April, 2009. Prices rose in synchronization with US stocks today.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for May delivery closed at $46.51/barrel (higher by $0.63 or 1.4%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the day, it dropped to a low of $43.83. Last week, crude ended lower by 3.7%.

Crude ended March trading up 10.9%. It rallied 11.3% in the first quarter. For the month of February, crude prices had ended higher by 1.5%.

Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 68.8% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 6.2%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 55.6%.

Crude traded in the lower regions earlier today as earnings from Du Pont and Caterpillar fuelled economic worries once again.

Earning reports dominated today. Caterpillar topped earnings expectations. DuPont topped the consensus earnings estimate and issued in-line guidance for 2009. Dow component Merck missed earnings expectations, though.

Also at the Nymex on Tuesday, May reformulated gasoline rose slightly to $1.4144 a gallon and May heating oil was up 1.62 cents, or 1.2%, to $1.3478 a gallon.

May natural gas futures fell 2.9 cents, or 0.8%, to $3.511 per million British thermal units.

Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for May delivery closed at Rs 2,468/barrel, lower by Rs 13 (0.52%) against previous day's close. Natural gas for April delivery closed at Rs 185.2/mmbtu, lower by Rs 3.5/mmbtu (1.8%).