Demand worries send crude prices lower

The price of crude oil fell a bit more Friday as investors worried about continuing demand erosion after a week of largely disappointing economic news, which included another jump in unemployment in the US and bad quarterly reports accompanied by forecasts of more of the same to come.

March contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude, expiring at the end of the trading day, dropped 54 cents to $38.94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange while April contracts were down 15 cents to $40.03 per barrel.

Brent crude, meanwhile, was down 10 cents to $41.89 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Nymex March gasoline futures were down 2 cents to $1.07 per gallon in afternoon trade, while April heating oil dropped a cent to $1.19 per gallon.

The good news came from AAA’s report on retail gasoline prices in the US, which dropped 1.1 cents overnight to an average of $1.938 cents per gallon, still $1.15 lower than last year at this time despite recent increases.