Crude remains unchanged

Prices witness a full day of volatile session

Crude prices ended almost unchanged on Wednesday, 02 September, 2009. Prices remained volatile for entire day but ultimately ended almost at yesterday's levels.

On Wednesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for October delivery closed at $68.05/barrel. During intra day trading, crude touched a high of $68.8 but also fell to a low of $67.05. Last week, crude ended higher by 9.5%. It was the biggest weekly gain for crude in three months.

For the month of August, 2009, crude ended higher by a marginal 0.7%. 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 56% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 42%.

EIA reported today that crude inventories fell by 400,000 barrels during last week. Market had expected a decline of 1.9 million barrels. At 343.4 million barrels, crude inventories stand at a level above the upper boundary of the average range for this time of year. Utilization rate rose to 87.2% of capacity.

Rising input was partly offset by another jump in crude imports. The U.S. imported 9.58 million barrels a day of crude last week, up 3.8% from a week ago.

EIA also reported that gasoline inventories fell by 3 million barrels last week. Distillates, however, rose by 1.2 million barrels.

In the currency market on Wednesday, the dollar index, which weighs the strength of dollar, against a basket of six other currencies ended slid by 0.5%.

Also at the Nymex on Wednesday, October reformulated gasoline rose 2.64 cents, or 1.5%, to $1.8086 a gallon. October heating oil fell slightly to $1.7505 a gallon.

October natural gas fell 10.6 cents, or 3.7%, to $2.715 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 September delivery closed lower by Rs 61 (1.8%) at Rs 3,330/barrel. Natural gas for September delivery closed lower by Rs 5 (3.5%) at Rs 136.3/mmbtu.