Heating oil prices down on Europe concerns

12 May 2010

Written by John King

Heating oil prices moved lower on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (May 12th), tracking crude prices lower.

The downward momentum continued for a second day this morning, with investors concerned that the European debt crisis may deepen further and damage demand for fuels throughout the region.

Speaking to Reuters, Keichi Sano, general manager of research at SCM Securities in Tokyo, said traders cannot rely on growth in emerging markets to counter this demand slump.

"We cannot depend on China to continue to support the world economy with an EU failure," he commented.

However, by the time European markets opened, heating oil and crude prices had rebuilt much of the losses suffered during the Asian trading session, but were still moderately lower.

Crude prices were down 20 cents at $76.18 a barrel, while heating oil prices were approaching yesterday's settle price of $2.1401 a gallon, with both commodities moving up.

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