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Heating Oil Prices

December 29, 2011 by · Comments Off on Heating Oil Prices 

Heating Oil PricesHeating Oil Prices, Heating oil rose as jobless claims slid to a three-year low over the past month and on speculation that oil product inventories declined last week.

Futures gained after Labor Department figures showed the four-week moving average for claims, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, dropped to 375,000 last week, the lowest level since June 2008. A survey by Bloomberg News projected distillate and gasoline supplies fell last week.

“The market is going to wait for the DOE stats later this morning,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston. “The market has been moving around quite a bit, volume is light and there could also be some short-covering from yesterday.”

January-delivery heating oil rose 0.93 cent, or 0.3 percent, to $2.9027 a gallon at 9:41 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are heading for a 14 percent gain in 2011.

The Energy Department is scheduled to report last week’s inventories at 11 a.m. today in Washington. The report will probably show that distillate stockpiles fell 650,000 barrels, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts in the survey. Supplies of gasoline decreased 500,000 barrels.

Gasoline for January delivery sank 1.45 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $2.6368 a gallon. Prices are up 7.5 percent this year, after climbing 41 percent through April 29.

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