Natural Gas Loses Value Again

Prices for major energy commodities Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed mixed, with natural gas taking the biggest hit.

Natural gas for January delivery, the latest available contract, was off 64 cents, or 5 percent, at $12.28 per million Btu. That’s a 10-percent drop for the week and the apparent upshot of milder U.S. weather and Thursday’s Energy Department report that natural gas inventories did not decline as much as had been expected.

High-quality crude oil for February delivery was up 15 cents at $58.43 per barrel.

Heating oil slipped about 3.47 cents to $1.7053 per gallon, and gasoline gained less than a penny to finish the week at $1.548 per gallon.