The May 2009 contract expires tomorrow. June 2009 futures were down 78 cents, or 1.5%, to $51.69 a barrel, at 10:27 a.m. Singapore time.
A US Commerce Department report on April 24, 2009 may show orders for durable goods such as refrigerators and computers fell for the fifth time in six months in March 2009, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The Energy Department said that crude-oil inventories are at 366.7 million barrels, the highest since September 1990.
US fuel demand in the first quarter of 2009 declined to the lowest for the period in 11 years, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said in a monthly report. Deliveries of petroleum products, a measure of usage, averaged 19.2 million barrels a day, 3.4% less than during the same period in 2008, API said.
Brent crude oil for June 2009 settlement dropped as much as 90 cents, or 1.7%, to $52.45 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was at $52.49 at 10:24 a.m. in Singapore. It rose 29 cents, or 0.5%, to $53.35 a barrel on April 17, 2009.
