Bourse

Home page

Bourse

Oil is poised for a 2% fall this week

06 February 2009 08:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev â€“ APA-Economics. Crude oil fell on concern that fuel demand in the U.S., the worldâ€™s biggest energy consumer, may decline as a report showed the number of newly jobless climbed to a 26-year high, Bloomberg reports.
Initial applications for unemployment benefits increased more than forecast to 626,000 last week, the U.S. Labor Department said yesterday. A release today may show the jobless rate rose to 7.5 percent in January. OPEC will keep oil shipments steady at a five-year low over the next four weeks, demonstrating that its first-round of supply cuts has stalled.
Brent crude oil for March settlement was at $46.43 a barrel, down 3 cents, on Londonâ€™s ICE Futures Europe exchange at 1:06 p.m. Singapore time. The contract yesterday rose $2.31, or 5.2 percent, to $46.46 a barrel.
Crude oil may trade between $39 and $43 a barrel in New York as U.S. stockpiles increase and OPEC members reduce production to bolster prices.
Crude oil for March delivery fell as much as 60 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $40.57 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $40.73 a barrel at 1:09 p.m. in Singapore.
Yesterday, futures rose 85 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $41.17 a barrel in New York, the highest settlement since Jan. 30. Prices have declined 8.6 percent this year and tumbled 53 percent from a year ago.
Oil is poised for a 2 percent drop this week, the smallest weekly change in more than five months. Prices declined 10 percent last week.