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Oil above $61 as jobless numbers drop
Chris Kahn Associated Press Energy Writer
Oil prices wavered July 16 after the government reported that jobless numbers had dropped unexpectedly.
Benchmark crude for August delivery added 9 cents to $61.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices fell 14 cents to $62.95 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
The Labor Department said new applications for unemployment insurance dropped to their lowest level since early January. However, a department analyst said the drop reflected problems adjusting layoffs for temporary shutdowns at General Motors and Chrysler plants.
Meanwhile, government reports showed U.S. storage facilities were still bloated with unused supplies and America’s appetite for petroleum continued to hover around 10-year lows.
Government reports on how much energy the country has on hand provide key readings on how well the economy is faring. This year, during one of the worst slumps since the Great Depression, U.S. inventories have been brimming with unused petroleum.
Gas stocks above average The Energy Information Administration said July 16 that trend continued as natural gas stockpiles remained well above their five-year average, growing to about 2.89 trillion cubic feet for the week ended July 10. A day earlier, the administration said distillate fuel levels rose to their highest level in 24 years.
Mike Zarembski, Senior Commodities Analyst at OptionsXpress, said the fuel supplies continue to tell traders that prices should stay where they are.
At the pump, retail gas prices fell 1.2 cents to a new national average of $2.492 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of gas is 18.2 cents cheaper than a month ago and $1.622 cheaper than last year.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline for August delivery added less than a penny at 1.7150 a gallon. Heating oil for August delivery climbed 2 cents to fetch $1.6024 a gallon. Natural gas for August delivery increased 22.3 cents to $3.506 per 1,000 cubic feet. l
—Associated Press writers Ernest Scheyder in New York, George Jahn in Vienna, Austria and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report from Singapore.
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