Oil Prices Down on Stock Losses

The price of crude lost 1.4 percent to settle at $58.02 a barrel and the price of heating oil fell 1.1 percent.

HEAT USA Price Report
Evening projection (for Thursday’s average retail price per gallon): DOWN $0.02
Oil prices got a big boost from a surprising report from the EIA that showed a major decrease in US inventories of crude oil and gasoline.  But those gains proved to be short-lived as poor retail data from the month of April detracted from building expectations of fast-approaching economic recovery and weighed down stock markets.   OPEC’s downward revision of 2009 demand expectations also put a drag on oil prices.

HEAT USA price experts noted that oil prices continued to be more strongly effected by movements of world stock markets than by supply and demand data.  They predicted a small decrease in retail prices tomorrow.