Today at $3.80 per gallon of unleaded. Here’s some from a wire story about oil prices.
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest readings on Chinese inflation and
renewed worries about European debt are pushing oil lower.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude fell $1.44 to $94.75 per
barrel Monday morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent
crude, which is used to price many international oil varieties,
dropped $2.41 to $115.92 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in
London.
Oil started falling early in electronic trading after a weekend
announcement that inflation in China hit a three-year high in June.
China has been raising interest rates in an attempt to control
inflation and cool off its economy, but on Saturday the government
said consumer prices continued to rise, jumping 6.4 percent last
month.
Rising consumer prices will heap even more pressure on the
country’s burgeoning economy, and that could affect energy demand.
Oil has been rising all year on the expectation that China would
drive world oil demand.
Meanwhile, European officials disagreed over a second bailout
package for Greece. Uncertainty about the country’s debt problems
raised concerns that the economic crisis could spread to Italy and
Spain.
“You combine the debt crisis in Europe with those (Greece)
austerity measures, and you get less spending and therefore less
demand” for oil, analyst Andrew Lipow said.
The dollar shot up against other currencies in morning trading, and
that also weighed on oil futures. Oil is traded in dollars and
tends to fall as the dollar strengthens and makes crude barrels
more expensive for investors holding foreign money.
