Crude ends lower again

Anticipation about increase in supplies pushes crude lower

Crude prices ended lower on Tuesday, 11 August, 2009. Prices fell in synchronization with falling US stocks and also as traders mulled that last week crude supplies registered an increase.

On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $69.45/barrel (lower by $1.15 or 1.6%). During intra day trading, it hit a low of $68.71. Last week, crude ended higher by 2.1%.

For the month of July, 2009, crude ended lower by a marginal 0.6%. 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 45.1% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 47%.

As per latest report, market expects a build in commercial crude stocks of 1.2 million barrels for the week ended 7 August, 2009. They also project a decline in gasoline stocks of 1.7 million barrels as well as a rise in distillate stocks of 900,000 barrels.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback's value, fell by almost 0.2%.

Also at the Nymex on Tuesday, September reformulated gasoline gained 1.48 cents to end at $2.0422 a gallon, while September heating oil declined fell 1.59 cents to finish at $1.9117 a gallon.

September natural gas futures fell 10 cents to end at $3.541 per million British thermal units.

Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for August delivery closed lower by33 (0.97%) at Rs 3,351/barrel. Natural gas for August delivery closed lower by Rs 2.8(1.6%) at Rs 173.1/mmbtu.