Crude touches $75

24/08/2009

Crude oil prices rose to $75 (£45) a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (August 24th), with US home sales data and a rally in equities both providing support for the commodity.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Stephen Schork, author of the Schork report and president of the Schork Group, said that with the $75-a-barrel barrier breached, there is little to stop the commodity rising to $80 or $85 a barrel.

Tetsu Emori, a commodity fund manager at Astmax Co in Tokyo, said that traders will now be looking ahead to data from the Energy Information Administration to establish whether demand for crude and associated products supports such a rise.

"The big inventory draw last week in US crude oil is one of the supportive factors but it is uncertain and we probably have to see more updated data this week. If last week's data is correct, the market could be even stronger," he predicted.

An upward trend in crude would also be likely to push up heating oil prices, while petrol and diesel prices at the pump may also move upwards in the coming weeks.