Oil Prices Climb on News of Currency Change

As of 8:57 am EDT, the price of crude had climbed 1.1 percent to reach $71.19 a barrel and the price of heating oil moved up 1 percent.

HEAT USA Price Report

Today’s average retail heating oil price per gallon: Up $0.00
Morning projection (for Wednesday’s average price per gallon): Up $0.03

Oil prices rose as the dollar fell, knocked back by a report by the Independent, a British newspaper, that oil-producing countries were planning to stop using the dollar as the currency for oil trading. Instead, the report claimed, they would move to a basket of currencies that would include the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, and the euro. Officials from a number of oil-producing nations quickly denied the report, but the story nonetheless pushed the dollar down. As the dollar declined, traders hedged with crude oil and moved that price higher.

HEAT USA price experts report that the weak dollar will keep the price of crude oil on the rise, and that will lead to a corresponding rise in the price of heating oil. Despite another predicted rise in oil inventories, analysts expect positive data regarding the US economic recovery, which would offer another boost to oil prices.