Crude oil prices float near $40 per barrel

Crude oil prices rose 9 cents a barrel early Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as waning demand continues to pressure limits at storage facilities.

When land-based storage units find breathing room or when market prices turn in traders’ favor, ocean-going tankers quickly act like a diaphragm to replenish storage facilities on shore, keeping pressure on pricing, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

There’s no database of ships sitting on storage right now. It makes it very, very difficult to speculate on how much supply is floating in tankers offshore, one broker told the Journal.

Crude oil prices rose to $40.27 per barrel Thursday. Heating oil prices gained 0.0004 cents to $1.3274 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline rose 0.0191 cents to $2.2375 per gallon. Natural gas prices rose 0.09 cents to $4.687 per million British thermal units.

At the pump, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.907 Thursday, up from Wednesday’s $1.90 a gallon, AAA said.