Oil Prices Recover After Wednesday’s Drop

As of 9:00 am EST, the price of crude had risen by .40 percent to reach $70.95 a barrel and the price of heating oil had climbed by .35 percent.

HEAT USA Price Report

Today’s average retail heating oil price per gallon: Down $0.07
Morning projection (for Friday’s average price per gallon): Up $0.02

Oil prices rebounded Thursday morning, supported by a weaker dollar and an opinion shared by many investors that oil had declined too quickly. Crude oil had dropped by 10 percent in six days as the dollar’s rise in the past week allowed the fundamentals of supply and demand to exert their influence on prices. The EIA’s weekly inventory report, issued Wednesday morning, showed how bleak oil’s fundamentals are. Supplies of crude dropped, but that was made up for by increases in inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, and gasoline. The abundance of refined products shows that demand for oil has not recovered.

HEAT USA price experts report that oil prices could climb because of a weak dollar, but analysts see few other factors—whether related to supply and demand or economic recovery—to support higher oil prices.