Crude Oil Prices Back Down As Dollar Gains

Crude oil prices retreated Thursday in New York trading as the dollar gained strength and speculators backed away from bets the price would continue to rise.

The only rescue plan is the fall in the dollar — and that’s not happening — so people are closing out, Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland told The Wall Street Journal.

Crude oil prices, which hit $111 per barrel last week, declined $2.17 Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange to $100.37 per barrel.

Heating oil prices also fell Thursday, down 0.0242 cents to $2.9925 per gallon.

Reformulated blendstock gasoline prices declined 0.0198 cents to $2.5405 per gallon.

Natural gas prices lost 0.14 cents to $8.884 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline in the United States dropped to $3.275 per gallon from Wednesday’s price of $3.279 per gallon, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report said.