Oil Trades Below $100 a Barrel
The effects of Hurricane Ike reached U.S. commodities markets Monday, as crude oil dipped to well less than $100 a barrel in morning trading.
Crude was selling for $94.75 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, off $6.43 from Friday’s close after it was determined that the hurricane did relatively little damage to Gulf oil production facilities.
Home heating oil was off 0.2060 cents, trading at $2.7331 a gallon.
Gasoline and natural gas also began Monday’s session lower. Gasoline was off 0.2338 cents, trading for $2.5358 a gallon, while natural gas was selling for $7.120 per million British thermal units, down 0.231 cents
While Ike didn’t affect crude production much, fears that gasoline supplies would be hampered by the storm caused a spike in prices at the pump. The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.842 Monday, compared to $3.675 a gallon Friday, AAA said.