Crude accumulates more losses

Prices shed almost 5% for the week
Crude oil prices dropped significantly on Friday, 22 January 2010. Prices fell as traders mulled over China's tightening of the current monetary policies, which will lead to demand concerns for crude in coming months. Sell-off of US stocks at Wall Street also pressured to declining commodity prices.
On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for March delivery closed at $74.54/barrel (lower by $1.54 or 2%). For the week, crude ended lower by 4.7%. On a year to date basis till date, crude is lower by 8%.
Crude ended FY 2009 higher by 78%, the highest yearly gain since 1999. It reached a high of $82 earlier in October 2009 and hit a low of $33.98 on 12 February 2009. Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 52% since then. Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.
During the week, in the weekly inventory report, the EIA reported that crude inventories fell by 471,000 barrels in the week ended 15 January 2010. Market was expecting the report to show a build up of 2 million of crude inventories. The report also showed that gasoline inventories increased by 3.9 million barrels.
In the currency market on Friday, the dollar index, which weighs the strength of dollar against the basket of six other currencies stayed steady against most of its counterparts. The dollar strengthened on fears that China will curb bank lending. The China Banking Regulatory Commission said it hasn't "specifically" told banks to suspend lending in January, but a report said that it had asked several banks to stop issuing loans. The dollar index dropped by a mere 0.2%.
Earlier during the week, in the latest report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said that world oil demand is forecast to grow by 800,000 barrels a day this year to average 85.1 million barrels a day, representing no major change from last month's forecast.
Paris based, IEA, left its forecasts for global oil demand for 2010 virtually unchanged in its latest monthly report last week. It forecasts demand of 86.3 million barrels a day in 2010, up 1.7%, or 1.4 million barrels a day higher than 2009.
Among other energy products on Friday, reformulated gasoline for February delivery fell 1.3 cents to $1.97 a gallon and heating oil for February delivery dropped 4.5 cents to $1.94 a gallon.
Also on Friday, bucking the trend in energy, February natural-gas futures rose 21.5 cents, or 3.8%, to $5.82 per million British thermal units.