Oil prices fall to six-week low

Oil prices fall to six-week lowOil prices have slipped to a six-week low as hurricane Dolly appears to be missing oil interests in the Gulf of Mexico.

US light sweet crude dipped to $125.63 a barrel, compared to the July high of $147 a barrel. London Brent crude also fell yesterday by $3.23 to $129.38 a barrel.

Falling prices have been attributed to the news an approaching tropical storm unlikely to affect supply.

In addition, the high price of oil – still 30 per cent higher than at the beginning of 2008 – is apparently putting off US motorists, lowering demand.

A survey from MasterCard found US gasoline demand dropped last week for the thirteenth week in a row and is down 2.2 per cent from the beginning of the year.

A strengthening dollar also made oil less attractive as a hedge for investors. Speculators have been blamed for the soaring price of oil but a report out today from a US government agency concludes investors are not at fault.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it “does not support the proposition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices,” in its interim report.

The falling price of oil has led to several UK supermarkets that operate petrol stations lowering their prices for motorists.

Have your say on 'Oil prices fall to six-week low', comment below

This article was posted on July 23, 2008 at 11:29 am.
Transforming Telford
Greenhous SAAB
MRC Recruitment
Entertainment - Ticket & Venue Search

Post a Comment

*
*

* Required fields. Your email is never published or shared.

Disclaimer: We will put up as many of your responses as possible but cannot guarantee that all comments will be published. We prefer short comments that include no external website links. We reserve the right to edit comments and will not enter into correspondence over editing decisions. Comments featured on the site are not representative of the views of the Shropshire Star or Midland News Association.