Monday's Commodities Roundup
Crude Oil and Products Futures Fall Moderately at the New York Mercantile Exchange
NEW YORK (Dow Jones News) -- Crude oil and products futures fell moderately at the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, correcting for surprisingly sharp gains last week.
Heating oil futures led the petroleum complex down, falling 1.5 cents, even as temperatures in the Northeast were dropping.
The National Weather Service changed its forecast this weekend from normal to below-normal temperatures for much of the U.S. for the next week or two. It now calls for above-normal temperatures.
``There is also a considerable stock overhanging the market, with less time left in the heating season to use it,'' said Tim Evans, analyst at IFR Pegasus.
March crude oil futures fell 31 cents to close at $20.07 a barrel, while March heating oil futures closed at 53.81 cents a gallon, down 1.50 cent.
Crude oil futures consolidated moderately lower Monday after running up nearly $1 Friday on fears of a strike against seven refineries that was averted and a fire in a Kuwaiti oil facility. With Kuwaiti officials saying that disruption to their exports will be minimal, traders looked to other news.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to consider changes in its oil output quotas before September, said OPEC Secretary General Ali Rodriguez Monday.
Rodriguez ruled out a change in quotas at OPEC's March meeting and urged non-OPEC producers to continue supply restraints.
``The market cannot handle any new oil,'' Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said output restraint measures in which OPEC and non-OPEC producers pledged to keep 2 million barrels a day of output off the market is effectively preventing oil prices from collapsing.
But some market players deemed the news as bearish.
``Demand reaches its lowest point in the second quarter and the most recent economic forecasts are not calling for any recovery (in unemployment) before the third quarter,'' said Peter Beutel, analyst at Cameron Hanover Inc.
The price of March gasoline fell 1.03 cent to 59.31 cents a gallon. Natural gas for March fell 2.1 cents to $2.117 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, March Brent crude from the North Sea fell 17 cents to $19.81.
In other commodities Monday: |
