Oil Prices Drop Off on IEA’s Demand Forecast

On Friday, the International Energy Agency again revised its prediction for 2009 oil demand downward, saying that global demand would fall by 2.4 million barrels per day compared to 2008.  The markets reacted strongly to the IEA’s forecast this morning, outweighing data that showed an increase in Chinese crude imports last month and sending oil prices plunging.

At 9:30 am EDT, the price of crude had fallen 6 percent to $49.10 a barrel and the price of heating oil had dropped 5.3 percent.

CNBC.com reported this morning that investments are beginning to trickle back into the commodities markets, but that investors remain wary of swollen stockpiles of petroleum products and depleted global demand for crude.

HEAT USA price experts were happy to see oil prices give back much of last week’s gains, and expected a moderate drop in retail prices tomorrow after falling prices on the market today.  They also explained that today’s retail prices were unchanged from Friday, due to the market closure for Good Friday.

HEAT USA Price Report
Today’s average retail heating oil price per gallon: NO CHANGE
Morning projection (for Tuesday’s average retail price per gallon): DOWN $0.04