Crude oil for October delivery fell as much as $4.15, or 4.3 percent, to $91.56 a barrel. It was at $91.80 at 1:17 p.m. Singapore time on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest intraday price since Feb. 11. Oil has declined 4.4 percent this year and dropped 38 percent from the record $147.27 a barrel reached on July 11.
Gasoline for October delivery fell for a second day, declining as much as 8.52 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $2.4762 a gallon in New York.
“Prices were too high because we're looking at a recession, we're looking at demand dropping,'' Peter Beutel, president of energy consultants Cameron Hanover Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ``Oil is not a safe haven.''
“We're seeing extremely pessimistic investor sentiment on the backdrop of the further deterioration of the global economic outlook,'' Yingxi Yu, a commodity analyst with Barclays Capital in Singapore, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Brent crude oil for November settlement fell as much as $4.44, or 4.7 percent, to $89.80 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was at $90.28 a barrel at 1:24 p.m. Singapore time.
Prices have dropped 14 straight days, the longest stretch since Brent futures were introduced in twenty years ago.
Texas oil refiners may need weeks to restore normal operations as utilities struggle to restore power after Hurricane Ike swept through the region.
A total of 14 Texas and Louisiana refineries, with combined crude-oil processing capacity of 3.57 million barrels a day, are shut because of Ike, the U.S. Energy Department said yesterday.
The International Energy Agency, an energy adviser to 27 industrialized countries, said it is analyzing the impact of Ike on oil, gas and refinery output and may release emergency stockpiles if called upon. The IEA coordinated the release of crude oil and fuel supplies after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
Author: Jo Amey
