Oil, Products Prices Ease

Oil traders took early session profits off the table Friday to bring down the price of crude oil and petroleum products.

A barrel of high quality crude for August delivery fell $1.10 to settle at $59.63 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Unleaded gasoline futures declined 4.22 cents to $1.7634 a gallon, while heating oil slid 5.68 cents to $1.7181 a gallon.

Fears of supply disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico from bad weather had boosted crude oil prices to $61.90 earlier in Friday’s session.

But uncertainty about whether Hurricane Dennis would do much damage, and a desire to book some profits after a wild week, prompted selling.

The market will likely wait until Monday to really see the actual damage caused to the platforms, said Agbeli Ameko, a managing partner at First Enercast Financial.

The key will be how long it will take to get production back online and if there will be significant production shut ins for a longer than expected period, he said. The market could go up big on Monday.