Crude oil prices, at less than $124 a barrel, corrected downward Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange after a week of price runs.

Analysts said the six-day spree left oil over-valued.

The pullback in prices that we started to see yesterday and continued to see this morning is a result of profit-taking, energy analyst Victor Shum told The Wall Street Journal.

The market was ready to take a breather and pocket some money, Shum said.

The retreat dropped oil prices from a high of $126 Friday to $123.87 per barrel Tuesday morning.

Heating oil prices rose 0.0379 cents to $3.5977 per gallon. The price of reformulated gasoline blendstock fell 0.0037 cents to $3.1605 per gallon. Natural gas prices fell 0.011 cents to $11.29 per million British thermal units.

The price at the pump climbed to a national average record $3.732 for a gallon of unleaded, up from Monday's price of $3.718 a gallon, AAA reported.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International


Publication date: 13 May 2008   

Source: UPI-1-20080513-08050200-bc-us-energyprices.xml

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