WORLD / America |
Gas prices fall at the pump, but oil rebounds(AP)Updated: 2007-07-28 01:25 NEW YORK -- Energy futures rebounded Friday as investors kept a wary eye on equity markets, while gasoline prices fell overnight to their lowest level since late May. Analysts said little in the way of fresh news was affecting oil and gasoline futures on Friday. "It's just a wide-swinging market with wide swings from all these crosscurrents we're seeing," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois. Those crosscurrents include the same concerns about lower economic growth that drove Thursday's sell-off on Wall Street, when the Dow Jones industrials closed down more than 310 points, analysts said. "The real concern is that a general pullback in liquidity will fuel an economic slowdown that will stall demand for crude," said Addison Armstrong, an analyst at TFS Energy Futures LLC, in Stamford, Connecticut, in a research note. A Commerce Department report Friday showing the U.S. economy grew by 3.4 percent in the second quarter served as an opposing current, supporting oil prices, as did the weak dollar, which drove investors to commodities such as oil and gas as a safe haven. Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $1.19 to $76.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 93 cents on Thursday in sympathy with the stock market, analysts said. August gasoline rose 1.41 cents on Friday to $2.09 a gallon after falling earlier on the Nymex. Meanwhile, the average national price of a gallon of gas fell 1.5 cents overnight to $2.92 (77 cents a liter), according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Retail prices, which typically lag the futures market, are at their lowest point since peaking at $3.227 a gallon (85 cents a liter) in late May. Gasoline futures and retail prices have declined in recent weeks as investors have come around to a view that the refining industry is finally producing enough gas to meet demand after a spring in which the industry was hampered by an unusual number of unexpected outages. In other Nymex trading on Friday, heating oil futures added 1.95 cent to $2.523 a gallon, and natural gas futures rose 2.8 cents to $5.971 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, September Brent crude gained 82 cents to $76 a barrel on Friday on the ICE Futures exchange. A debate about market fundamentals is playing itself out in a tug of war over energy futures prices. While oil is trading near 11-month highs, gasoline futures have fallen nearly 30 cents in two weeks. Many investors, including large funds, have read recent inventory reports from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration bullishly. On Wednesday, oil surged more than $2 on word crude inventories fell overall, and in particular in and around the Nymex delivery point at Cushing, Oklahoma. Bulls have speculated that high global demand and supply constraints will push oil prices to $95 a barrel, or higher, later this year. At the least, many analysts expect oil traders to continue testing last year's all-time intraday high of $78.40 in the coming weeks. But other investors, and many analysts, see the situation more bearishly, noting that despite their recent declines crude inventories are at 8-year highs. These analysts argue that much of oil's recent rally has been fueled by funds that rely on technical buying _ or predetermined decisions to buy when oil prices reach certain levels. They point to data showing record levels of speculative buying of oil futures. They also note that oil plummeted by almost $20 a barrel last fall after reaching record highs in the summer. "That's not based on anything," said James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Florida, of $95 a barrel predictions. "I would expect that crude will be back in the $60's here in the fall." The only consensus seems to be that prices will continue to be volatile. "We've got a highly charged market here, and it doesn't take much of a headline to spark a 5 percent price move," said Ritterbusch. |
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