Posted on 11/11/2005 1:51:43 PM PST by LdSentinal
LONDON -- World oil prices fell further on Friday, with New York's main contract plunging to the lowest point in almost four months, owing to mild temperatures in the United States, where crude inventories are recovering also after recent hurricanes.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, fell 40 cents to 57.40 dollars per barrel in pit deals. Earlier on Friday it had hit 56.93 dollars, its lowest point since July 21.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery shed 81 cents to 54.87 dollars per barrel in electronic dealing.
"Warm weather has recently been the key depressing factor for oil though we note that in the main US northeast heating oil region, forecasts are for significantly colder weather to arrive late next week," Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish said.
"We continue to view the market as getting a little complacent about product availability and the arrival of colder weather could be the catalyst required to end the recent downtrend," he added.
Prices were being weighed down also by rising crude stockpiles in the United States, the world's biggest consumer of energy.
The US Department of Energy had said on Wednesday that crude inventories rose for the fifth week, by 4.5 million barrels to 323.6 million in the seven days ending November 4.
The International Energy Agency followed up the data by shaving its forecast for oil demand growth in 2005 and 2006.
The Paris-based agency on Thursday revised down its forecast for growth of global oil demand this year by 70,000 barrels per day to 1.20 million barrels per day and for next year by 90,000 barrels per day to 1.66 million barrels.
Crude futures in New York have fallen by about 19 percent since reaching a record high of 70.85 dollars on August 30, a day after Hurricane Katrina hit major oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore refineries.
Manoucheht Takin of the Center for Global Energy Studies said the sharp falls indicated that high prices are beginning to erode demand. "This is the third year prices are high, and since the end of 2003 people have been anticipating that consumers would buy less. I think we are beginning to see a decline in demand in response to high prices," he said
I saw under $2.00 tonight in Ohio. First time in a while.
Use Gas Buddy to find the cheapest gasoline in your area:
http://www.gasbuddy.com/
And then start smacking your CongressCritters around about the amount of TAXES you're paying on a gallon of gas, and see if you can get them to budge on that:
http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf2004/gastax.htm (These are 2004 figures, most current out there.) I'm paying 30.3 cents per gallon in TAX for my gasoline. How about you?
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