Oil gets hammered: Crude drops to $67.00 per barrel

Posted Jul 2nd 2009 11:50AM by Connie Madon
Filed under: International Markets, Industry, Commodities, Oil

The unemployment numbers just came out and showed that the U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs last month. That was the trigger for the oil traders. Within a few minutes oil dropped $2.02 per barrel to $67.19 at 9:07 EDT.

Adding fuel to the decline was the report that gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.9 million barrels, but crude dropped 3.7 million barrels.

Traders see a range for crude of between $60.00 to $80.00 per barrel. There are mitigating factors that impinge on the oil market at these levels. First, we have the unrest in Iran, yet there is no expectation that Iran will cut production. More serious, however, is the trouble in Nigeria. Unrest there has caused the shut off of 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day.

If you remember, OPEC made several cuts in production, and surprisingly 72% of promised cutbacks have been made.

China made an unexpected move last week by raising the price of gasoline and diesel by nearly 10%. This alone may put a damper on demand in China.

So, we may be seeing a temporary lid on prices, which most likely will come as weaker demand here in the U.S. and China begin to take hold.

Do you expect that gasoline prices will drop now?

Tags: China, fuel prices, inthenews, oil prices, oil production, OPEC, unemployment

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-02-2009 @ 1:00PM

dang1067 said...

HEADLIE: "Oil gets hammered: Crude drops to $67.00 per barrel"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
BS!!! Oil isn't being hammered!!! Based on the current hell-hole economy, the manipulated excessive sky high oil-price should actually be in the $9 per barrel, and gas should actually be in the 72-cents per gallon!!!

7-02-2009 @ 1:54PM

Raymond R. Murray said...

Big oil runs this country and they are not letting go of the big profits. It is sinful what they make and they should be nationalized as a nationl security thing. All the politicians in congress are paid off by the oil companies and if not paid off, they are told to do what big oil and corporations tell them to do or they will be put out of office by the big money boys.

7-02-2009 @ 3:23PM

Iridium said...

It is Big Oil it is Big Wall Street that runs this country. It is Goldman Sachs that pulls the punches.

The oil companies can't really do all that much to influence prices. The market maipulators sitting at trading desks have all the power.

You want lower gas prices then bring back the rules that regulated the commodity markets that were repealed in 2001.