Oil Prices Slip Again With No Economic Recovery in Sight

At 9:11 am EDT, the price of crude had fallen by 0.9 percent to $59.33 a barrel and the price of heating oil had lost 1.7 percent.

HEAT USA Price Report

Today’s average retail heating oil price per gallon: DOWN $0.02
Morning projection (for Tuesday’s price per gallon): DOWN $0.02

The optimistic exuberance that helped drive crude oil prices up more than 40 percent in the second quarter of 2009 has essentially disappeared, giving way to a bearish sentiment brought on by fundamental forces.  Economic data that has come out of the world’s leading economies in recent weeks showed that they are still struggling to break out of recession; the economic downturn has cut down oil demand in those economies.  Speaking to CNBC, Mike Wittner, global head of oil research at Societe Generale explained, “We are in a well entrenched downtrend and you need something distinctly bullish to pull out of it.”

HEAT USA price experts reported that retail prices saw a small decrease this morning, as they had predicted.  They forecast a similar reduction in Tuesday’s retail prices.