Crude registers marginal drop

Prices drop on inventory report expectation

Crude prices ended marginally lower on Tuesday, 04 August, 2009. Prices fell as traders anticipated that tomorrow's inventory report will show rise in crude and crude product inventories for last week.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $71.42/barrel (lower by $0.16 or 0.22%). During intra day trading, it rose to a high of $71.91 and also fell to a low of $70.16. Last week, crude ended higher by 2.1%.

For the month of July, 2009, crude ended lower by a marginal 0.6%. For the second quarter, crude ended higher by 40%. Crude prices had rallied 11.3% in the first quarter of 2009.

Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 44% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 48.3%.

In the currency market on Monday, the dollar index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback's value, rose a mere 0.1%.

Also at the Nymex on Tuesday, September reformulated gasoline fell 1 cent to $2.06 a gallon, while September heating oil gained 3 cents to $1.90 a gallon.

September natural-gas futures fell 3 cents to $4.00 per million British thermal units. The contract rallied 10.4% yesterday.

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

At the MCX, crude oil for August delivery closed lower by 38(1.11%) at Rs 3,377/barrel. Natural gas for August delivery closed at Rs 189/mmbtu, lower by Rs 2.8/mmbtu (1.45%).