Crude glides up

Prices cross $60 mark during intra day trading

Crude oil ended higher on Tuesday, 12 May, 2009. Prices rose today due to the weak dollar and also on reports that crude imports to China during April registered substantial increase.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for June delivery closed at $58.85/barrel (higher by $0.35 or 0.6%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, it fell to $57.81 and also rose to $60.08. Last week, crude ended higher by 10.2%.

Crude ended April higher by 2.9%. Previously, March trading ended 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 61% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 24.2%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 39%.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the greenback was relatively weak and the dollar index, which weighs the strength of dollar against the basket of six other currencies was down 0.8% at $82.612.

China's customs department reported today that the country's imports increased by 13.6% last month to 16.17 million metric tons, or 3.9 million barrels a day. April's imports were still lower compared with the 16.34 million tons China bought from abroad in March, the highest in a year. The country imports about half of its oil consumption, which stood at 7.8 million barrels a day.

EIA said today in a monthly report that it now projected world oil demand to fall by 1.8 million barrels per day in 2009, a decline that is 400,000 barrels larger than the EIA had forecasted last month. The report also said that oil prices will remain flat for the remainder of the year, averaging about $55 a barrel.

Also at the Nymex on Tuesday, June-reformulated gasoline fell 1.23 cents, or 0.7%, to $1.6679 a gallon, and June heating oil added 0.61 cent, or 0.4%, to $1.5070 a gallon.

Natural gas for June delivery gained 18.8 cents, or 4.4% to $4.490 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 2,907/barrel, higher by Rs 32 (1.1%) against previous day's close. Natural gas for May delivery closed at Rs 216.3/mmbtu, higher by Rs 3.4/mmbtu (1.6%).