Crude slips down

Friday's loss curtails crude's weekly gains

Crude prices ended lower on Friday, 07 August, 2009. Prices fell as the dollar strengthened following an upbeat job report from the Labor Department in US. Inspite of the drop, crude managed weekly gains.

On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $70.93/barrel (lower by $1.01 or 1.4%). During intra day trading, it rose to a high of $72. For the 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 43% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 47.5%.

In the currency market on Friday, the dollar index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback's value, rose by almost 0.7%.

The Labor Department reported on Friday, 07 August, 2009 that the unemployment rate, in July, 2009 unexpectedly fell to 9.4% as nearly a half a million people dropped out of the labor market. Market was expecting a figure of 9.7%. U.S. nonfarm payrolls declined by 247,000 to 131.5 million in July, the 19th consecutive month of job losses. It was the fewest lost payroll jobs since last August, 2008.

Earlier during the week, EIA reported that crude supplies increased 1.7 million barrels to 349.5 million barrels in the week ended 31 July, 2009. Market was expecting a rise of 1.5 million barrels. The Energy Department also said that gasoline stocks fell by 200,000 barrels and distillate inventories dropped by 1.1 million barrels last week.

Also at the Nymex on Friday, September reformulated gasoline fell 5.26 cents, or 2.6%, to $2.0081 a gallon, and September heating oil dropped 2.45 cents, or 1.3%, to $1.9122 a gallon.

September natural gas futures rose 6.9 cents, or 1.8%, to $3.674 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 August delivery closed lower by 35 (1.02%) at Rs 3,392/barrel. Natural gas for August delivery closed unchanged at Rs 177.7/mmbtu.