Crude static at start of week

29/06/2009

Crude oil prices were little changed on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) this morning (June 29th).

At 05:32 Eastern Time, the August delivery contract was trading at $69.13 (£41.86) a barrel, down three cents on Friday's closing price.

Despite stalling in recent days, the commodity is still on course for its first quarterly rise in a year.

However, Bloomberg reports that crude may struggle to repeat the rally in the third quarter as demand fundamentals remain weak.

"As long as there's uncertainty about growth, that's going to be headwind commodities won't be able to overcome," predicted Walter Hellwig, a fund manager at Morgan Asset Management.

Heating oil and gasoline prices have also been pegged back by weak demand data published by the Energy Information Administration and the American Petroleum Institute in recent weeks.

The International Energy Agency has also warned that global crude demand will stay shy of its 2008 peak until at least 2012.