Crude prices fall more on demand concerns

Crude oil prices fell again Wednesday as demand was forecast to continue declines and as oil companies geared up to restart offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and refineries along the Gulf Coast that were shut down ahead of Hurricane Gustav, which caused much less damage to facilities than had been feared ahead of the storm.

While there are three more tropical storms in the Atlantic which are forecast to strengthen into hurricanes, none seemed likely to cause major problems for oil operations in the Gulf region.

West Texas Intermediate crude October contracts dropped 40 cents to $109.31 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after dropping as low as $107.22 per barrel earlier in the session, while at last report Brent crude was down 74 cents to $107.60 per barrel.

Nymex October gasoline was last down 3 cents to $2.70 per gallon while October heating oil had dropped 1 cent to $3.06 per gallon and October natural gas was 1 cent lower to $7.25 per million British thermal units.

The weekly US inventories report from the Energy Information Administration, usually released on Wednesday, will be delivered on Thursday this week due to the Labor Day holiday, which was observed Monday.