Reply #3: Oil prices retreat from record high [View All]

SINGAPORE - Oil prices dropped Thursday as traders took profits after U.S. crude stocks fell and drove oil futures in the previous session above $80 a barrel for the first time ever.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery lost 13 cents to $79.78 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by mid-afternoon in Singapore.

The contract climbed as high as $80.18 a barrel Wednesday before settling at a record close of $79.91 a barrel, up $1.68.

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Gasoline inventories fell by 700,000 barrels, slightly more than the expected 500,000 barrel decline.

Refinery utilization fell by 1.6 percentage points to 90.5 percent of capacity. Analysts had expected a 0.1 percentage point decline. And inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, grew by 1.8 million barrels, more than the 1.4 million-barrel increase analysts had expected.

Oil's recent advance, analysts said, has been largely due to speculative buying by big investment funds, who are responding to a price structure in which oil contracts for delivery in future months are cheaper than the current front-month contract.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices