Crude continues to drop

Crude prices continue to slip as traders speculate on slowdown in US’s economic growth
Crude oil futures carried on with downward journey today as fresh credit concerns once again hit Wall Street. Concerns about slowdown in US’s economic growth which will lead to lower energy consumption led to slipping crude prices. The slowdown comes at a time when oil inventories are 11% above the five-year average.
For the day ending Thursday, 9 August, 2007 crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $71.59/barrel (lower by $0.56/barrel or 0.78%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude oil for September settlement fell 78 cents (1.1%) to $70.21 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Crude oil was also pulled lower by a U.S. government report yesterday that showed gasoline demand may have peaked for the year. The Energy Dept had reported yesterday that U.S. gasoline demand, declined to an average of 9.66 million barrels a day for the four weeks ended 3 August. The fall in the four-week average was the first in 13 weeks. Consumption was 0.8% higher than a year earlier.
All eyes on IEA’s monthly report tomorrow
As per Energy Dept’s report on natural gas, natural gas supplies rose by 42 billion cubic feet to 2,882 billion cubic feet in the week ending 3 August. September natural gas rallied 36.60 cents (6%) at $6.586 per million British thermal units, boosted by supply data.
Against this backdrop, September reformulated gasoline closed down 0.37 cent at $1.9340 a gallon and September heating oil gained 2.24 cents at $1.9892 a gallon.

Attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria have curtailed shipments and tight supplies from OPEC have bolstered crude prices this year. Crude oil prices are also higher because of concern that shipments from Iran, Nigeria and Iraq may be disrupted.
OPEC is scheduled to meet at Vienna on 11 September, 2007 for their next meeting. IEA, which is due to issue its monthly oil market report tomorrow, has called on OPEC to increase output in case of any emergency interruptions to global supply.
sourcehttp://www.capitalmarket.com/