Crude prices managed to end higher at Nymex on Monday, 28 September, 2009. But dollar's movement kept the gains under control.
On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for November delivery closed at $66.84/barrel (higher by $0.82 or 1.2%). Last week, crude ended lower by 8%.
For the month of August, 2009, crude ended higher by a marginal 0.7%. For the second quarter, crude ended higher by 40%. Crude prices had rallied 11.3% in the first quarter of 2009.
Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 64% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 42%.
In the currency market on Monday, the dollar remained extremely volatile. The dollar index, which measures the strength of dollar against a basket of other currencies, rose by almost 1.5% earlier during the day but then erased most of its gains.
Among other energy products on Friday, October reformulated gasoline rose 2 cents, or 1.2%, to $1.64 a gallon and October heating oil gained 2 cents, or 1.2%, to $1.69 a gallon.
Also on Friday, natural gas for October delivery fell 25 cents, or 6%, to $3.73 per million British thermal units. The October contract expired today. The new front-month November contract fell 11.8 cents to finish at $4.83 Btus.
Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.