Oil prices stage retreat

Worries over Iran’s nuclear ambitions were overshadowed on Tuesday by a forecast that US petroleum stockpiles will be up when weekly reports come out on Wednesday. A poll of energy analysts conducted by Reuters showed that the analysts expect that US gasoline inventories will grow by 1.6 million barrels and that crude oil stockpiles will be up by 800,000 barrels.

The price of Brent crude March contracts on the International Petroleum Exchange fell $1.27 to $62.06 per barrel by late afternoon in London, while West Texas Intermediate crude prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down by $1.36 at early afternoon, to $63.75 per barrel.

Also helping prices to fall was an estimate from the US Energy Information Administration that global oil demand in the first quarter of 2006 will be 85 million barrels per day, a drop of 300,000 barrels per day from its previous forecast. The EIA’s demand growth forecast, however, was left at its previous estimate of a growth in demand of 1.6 million barrels per day.

US petroleum product prices dropped at a steeper rate than crude oil prices did. March Nymex gasoline prices fell 3.62 cents to $1.6080 per gallon, while March heating oil futures on Nymex were down 4.03 cents to $1.7240 per gallon.