Oil futures remain under 60 dollars

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up again on Friday as gasoline and heating oil prices also went up ahead of the Independence Day weekend in the US.

Unleaded gasoline on the New York Mercantile Exchange ended the day 8.27 cents higher at $1.6485 per gallon, while heating oil rose 7.5 cents to $1.7111 per gallon.

This sent WTI August contracts $2.25 higher, to $58.75 per barrel in New York, while Brent contracts for August on the International Petroleum Exchange gained $1.96 to $57.54 per barrel.

Despite these advances, crude oil futures closed below the record high of $60.85 per barrel that was reached on Monday.

Barclay’s has predicted that WTI will average around $60 per barrel in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said this week that the “ideal” price for WTI, in the view of his group, is $53 per gallon and that it would take up the issue of increasing production quotas by another 500,000 barrels per day only if the price per barrel exceeds $60 per gallon again.

One of the reasons for the rises in crude oil prices have been fears of shortages in the fourth quarter of the year, but the US energy department has said that concerns about tight supplies later in the year are not completely justified.