Crude prices end marginally higher
Better than feared economic data pushed crude prices higher on Friday, 30 January, 2009.
On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for March delivery closed at $41.68/barrel (higher by $0.24 or 0.6%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier during the day, it touched a high of $43.44. For the week, crude prices ended lower by 10%. In January, 2009, crude shed 14%.
Prices reached a high of $147 on 11 July but have dropped almost 72% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are lower by 14%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 65%.
The Commerce Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy contracted at a 3.8% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, a decline that would have been worse except that the government counts an unwanted buildup of goods on store shelves as growth. Adjusted, gross domestic product contracted at a 5.1% pace in the final three months of 2008, the weakest in 28 years. But still it was less bad than feared.
Earlier during the week, the Energy department had reported that U.S. crude stockpiles jumped 6.2 million barrels last week to reach 338.9 million barrels. That's the highest level the EIA has reported since August 2007. U.S. refineries operated at 82.5% of their operable capacity last week, down from the 83.3% a week ago. EIA had also reported that gasoline inventories fell 100,000 barrels, and distillate fuel stockpiles, which include heating oil and diesel, dropped 1 million barrels last week.
Against this background, March reformulated gasoline rose 2% to $1.2687 a gallon, and March heating oil gained 1.1% to $1.434 a gallon.
March natural gas futures gained fell 3.5% to $4.417 per million British thermal units.
source: Capital Market
