Heating oil prices wobble in morning trade

30 June 2010

In early trading this morning (June 30th), heating oil prices on the New York Mercantile were trading within slim margins of yesterday's settle price, as conflicting pressures weighed on the commodity.

A weaker dollar provided support for both crude and heating oil this morning, but concerns about demand were also at the forefront of traders' minds ahead of the latest inventory report.

Ahead of the Energy Information Administration report later today, analysts polled by Bloomberg estimated that crude stocks dropped one million barrels last week, marking the first decline in three weeks.

However, a report from the American Petroleum Institute released yesterday showed a sharp rise in distillate fuels including diesel and heating oil. The group said stocks rose 3.9 million barrels last week.

Reacting to the data, traders pushed heating oil prices fractionally lower against yesterday's settle price of $2.0213 a gallon, while crude oil prices rose marginally to breach $76 a barrel.