Oil Prices Edge Up, Still Below 60 Dollars

Oil prices edge up, still below 60 dollars

NEW YORK, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) — World crude oil prices edged up but still kept below 60 US dollars per barrel Tuesday.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, rose 24 cents to 59.71 dollars a barrel in closing deals. It hit 58.60 dollars Monday, the lowest for a front-month contract since July 26.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery fell 23 cents to end the session at 57.81 dollars a barrel.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, December heating oil futures fell 1 cents to settle at 1.77 dollars a gallon and gasoline futures dropped 0.5 cents to settle at 1.56 dollars per gallon.

Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Alaron, said traders are currently focused on the warmer-than-normal weather for the rest of the week and a potential build in distillates in Wednesday’s inventory report. After that, he said, traders will be watching a massive cold air front in Canada that could bring freezing temperatures to the Midwest and Northeast in time for Thanksgiving.

The restart of storm-damaged refineries in the Gulf of Mexico continues. The US Minerals Management Service said Tuesday’s shut- in oil production was 738,617 barrels of oil per day, the equivalent to 49.24 percent of the gulf’s daily oil production. The shut-in gas production was 4.122 billion cubic feet per day, the equivalent to 41.23 percent of the gulf’s daily gas production.

The International Energy Agency said on Monday that the world has enough energy until 2030, on condition that there is sufficient investment in supplies.