Market watch: Oil futures prices continue to drop
By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, Sept. 26 -- Oil futures prices continued falling Tuesday to 22-month lows on the New York Mercantile Exchange as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries signaled they have no intention of changing their production quota at their meeting today in Vienna.
Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil, who is also OPEC president, said Tuesday that the cartel is considering neither an increase nor a decrease in production.
The drop in Tuesday's prices was relatively mild compared to Monday's freefall, with the November contract for benchmark US sweet, light crude losing 20¢ to $21.81/bbl in the latest session and the December contract down 23¢ to $22.21/bbl.
On Monday, those near-month contracts for US oil dropped nearly $4/bbl each in the biggest 1-day loss since the Desert Storm campaign against Iran in 1991 (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2001).
Unleaded gasoline led Tuesday's decline, with the October contract down 1.51¢ to 62.09¢/gal.
However, home heating oil for the same month inched up 0.7¢ to 61.76¢/gal. The October natural gas contract also gained 1.5¢ to $1.93/Mcf.
After the close of trading Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported US oil inventories declined by 256,000 bbl last week to 304.3 million bbl. Distillate stocks, including home heating oil, dropped 1.3 million bbl to 121.6 million bbl. But US gasoline stocks increased by 8.7 million bbl to 199.1 million.
In London, futures prices for North Sea Brent crude improved with a small technical recovery from Monday's losses on the International Petroleum Exchange. The November Brent contract gained 36¢ to $22.38/bbl.
The October natural gas contract also moved up 2.8¢ to the equivalent $3.18/Mcf on the IPE.
The average price for OPEC's basket of seven crudes lost 64¢ to $19.87/bbl Tuesday.