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Crude oil trades near $45

05 March 2009 07:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev â€“ APA-Economics. Crude oil traded near $45 a barrel, after climbing in the past two days, as China plans to increase imports of commodities.
Crude oil for April delivery was at $44.92 a barrel, down 46 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 1:29 p.m. Singapore time. Yesterday, futures rose $3.73 to $45.38. Prices are down 69 percent from the record high of $147.27 a barrel reached on July 11.
Brent crude oil for April settlement was at $45.67 a barrel, down 45 cents, on Londonâ€™s ICE Futures Europe exchange at 1:12 p.m. Singapore time. It increased $2.42, or 5.5 percent, to settle at $46.12 a barrel yesterday. Oil traded in New Yorkâ€™s discount to the Brent grade narrowed to 74 cents a barrel yesterday, the smallest since Jan. 2.
The price of oil on Nymex for delivery in May is more than $1 a barrel higher than for April. The situation where prompt-month futures are less expensive than later-dated contracts is called contango. The difference has narrowed from $2.83 on Feb. 23.
For the Brent contract, the contango between the April and May contracts has narrowed further. It has moved from $1.37 a barrel on Feb. 23 to 90 cents a barrel today.