Crude moves up

Prices register nominal weekly losses

Crude prices ended modestly higher on Tuesday, 21 October at Nymex. Traders retuned back to commodities on Friday on thoughts that recent selling in commodities was overdone. The weak dollar helped prices go up. Investors cautiously welcomed a statement from France and Germany promising to provide firm details of a debt-rescue plan for the euro zone in the next few days.

Light and sweet crude for November delivery rose $1.33 (1.6%) to $87.4 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday. For the week, crude gained 0.7%. For the month of September, oil futures lost 11%, and for the quarter, crude incurred losses of 17%. It was the worst quarterly performance for crude in almost two years.



The oil market was also evaluating the impact of the death of former Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed by revolutionary forces in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

Commotdities tracked equity markets' gains across the globe on Friday, as U.S. stocks moved broadly higher following key earnings, with McDonald's shares trading at an all-time high and amid optimism ahead of a euro-zone summit over the weekend.

In the currency market on Friday, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, ended lower by 0.5%.

In the latest weekly inventory report, The Energy Information Administration reported earlier during the week that oil inventories dropped 4.7 million barrels in the week ended 14 October 2011. Market had expected an increase of 1.75 million barrels. The EIA also reported a decline of 3.3 million barrels in gasoline inventories, and a decrease of 4.3 million barrels in distillates supplies. Market had expected declines of 1.25 million barrels in gasoline supplies and 1.1 million barrels in distillates stockpiles.

Among other energy products on Friday, November gasoline rose 1 cent, or 0.3%, to $2.69 a gallon, but it was down 4.8% for the week. November heating oil shed a penny, or 0.4%, to $3.02 a gallon, falling 1.4% on the week.

Natural gas for November delivery closed little changed at $3.63 per million British thermal units, down 1.9% from a week ago.