No change for Nymex crude

21/07/2009

Crude oil prices remained unchanged in electronic trading this morning (July 21st) after seesawing by small margins earlier in the day.

At 05:53 Eastern Time on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the August delivery crude contract stood at $63.98 (£38.95) a barrel, unchanged from its settle price yesterday, when it closed up 42 cents.

Trading in heating oil also held steady during electronic trading, with investors awaiting new data showing how demand for gasoline held up in the US last week.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg are anticipating that stocks probably rose by 850,000 barrels last week, indicating a further weakening in demand.

Thina Saltvedt, an analyst at Nordea Bank AB in Oslo, told the news agency: "Better than expected macro indicators are keeping hopes up, but we need to see some improvement in demand."

Investors will also be looking ahead to weekly heating oil and crude inventory data from the Energy Information Administration due to be published tomorrow.