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Oil dips below $122 in Asia on waning demand in US
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-30 17:25 Crude futures have sharply fallen over the past 19 days. The price of oil has dropped in seven of the last 10 sessions, and is down about 17 percent from its peak above $147 a barrel earlier this month. Prices remain about 60 percent higher than at this time last year. Oil prices fell despite Royal Dutch Shell PLC saying Tuesday it may not be able to fulfill some oil-export contracts after Nigerian militants sabotaged a pipeline in the Niger Delta. Militant attacks on Nigerian oil facilities have trimmed nearly one quarter of the country's regular daily output. The strongest Nigerian militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, said it sabotaged two pipelines early Monday in the southern oil-producing region. Nigerian media reported the main pipeline normally carries about 130,000 barrels per day of crude oil from wells to export terminals. Shell didn't specify how much oil production was cut by the militant attack or how long repairs would take. Shell said its so-called "force majeure" announcement covers three months of supply contracts from the affected pipeline, but didn't specify how much oil that covered. In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures were little changed at $3.4715 a gallon while gasoline prices fell 1.17 cents to $2.996 a gallon. Natural gas futures were steady at $9.217 per 1,000 cubic feet. |
