Crude ends little lower

Prices manage to recover from intra day lows

Crude prices ended little lower on Tuesday, 09 March 2010. Prices fell as dollar headed higher. However, crude managed to recover from its intra day lows.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for April delivery closed at $81.23/barrel (lower by $0.25 or 0.8%). Prices fell to a low of $80.12 during intra day trading. Prices gained 2% last week.

Crude prices rose 9.3% in February as supply-and-demand issues began to take hold in a market for months dominated by moves in the dollar. Prices have ranged between $69 and $84 a barrel since October. Crude has risen 72% in last one year.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, rose by more than 0.3%.

In the latest monthly report, the EIA reported today that it now expects oil consumption growth of 1.5 million barrels a day this year, up from 1.2 million barrels a day in last month's outlook. As per the report, with that demand, oil prices should stabilize above $80 a barrel. The report also detailed that with this, price of crude oil is to average above $80 a barrel this spring, then rise to about $82 a barrel by the end of the year. Crude should climb to $85 a barrel by the end of 2011.

Among other energy products on Tuesday, heating-oil futures traded nearly flat at $2.0983 a gallon, while gasoline futures fell 2 cents, or 1.1%, at $2.265 a gallon.

Also on Tuesday, natural-gas futures give up earlier gains and traded 0.1% lower at $4.521 per million British thermal units.

Crude ended FY 2009 higher by 78%, the highest yearly gain since 1999. It reached a high of $82 earlier in October 2009 and hit a low of $33.98 on 12 February 2009. Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 45% since then. Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for February delivery closed Rs 16 (0.43%) higher at Rs 3,723/barrel. Natural gas for March delivery closed at Rs 206.5/mmbtu, lower by Rs 0.2 (0.09%).