Weak dollar sends heating oil up

26 March 2010

Written by Kim Bardsley

Heating oil prices rose alongside crude this morning as a weak dollar made commodities on the New York Mercantile Exchange more attractive to foreign investors.

In morning trading, crude reached a high of $81.21 (€60.72) a barrel, up more than $1, while heating oil prices also climbed to $2.079 a gallon, up more than a cent.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Geoff Clear, head of Asia commodities at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Singapore, said that while a weaker dollar has provided temporary support for crude, it is difficult to build a case for sustained price rises.

"It's actually a weakness continuing in the European economy, that's probably what's showing up here," he explained, pointing to the political wrangling taking place at the EU economic summit in Brussels as leaders seek a resolution to Greece's debt crisis.

In recent weeks, rallies in crude and heating oil have been cut short by weekly reports from the American Petroleum Institute and the Energy Information Administration demonstrating continued weakness in demand across all fuel categories in the US.

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