Crude goes further higher

Crude witnesses second consecutive weekly gains

Crude oil ended higher for the third straight day on Friday, 01 May, 2009 helping crude register its second consecutive weekly gain. Better than expected earning and economic reports gave some hopes that the worst might be over for the overall economy in terms of recession and things might just get better from here thereby increasing the demand for energy in the coming months.

On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for June delivery closed at $53.2/barrel (higher by $2.08 or 4.1%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, crude ended higher by 3.2%.

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 68.8% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 14%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 51%.

On Friday, the ISM Manufacturing Index for April came in at 40.1. That was much better than the 38.4 that was expected, and was also up from 36.3 in March. But economic conditions remained dour as factory orders for March declined 0.9%, which was worse than the 0.6% decline that was widely expected, and February orders were revised lower to reflect an increase of 0.7%. Also, U.S. consumer sentiment rose in April, but remained at relatively low levels, according to a survey released by the University of Michigan.

Also at the Nymex on Friday, June reformulated gasoline rose 5.16 cents, or 3.5%, to $1.5174 a gallon and June heating oil gained 5.16 cents, or 3.9%, to $1.3884 a gallon.

June natural-gas futures added 16.5 cents, or 4.9%, to $3.538 per million British thermal units.

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