Crude prices drop as US GDP slows in second quarter

Crude oil prices were slightly lower in midday trade in New York, with the slide coming on slower growth in the US economy.

The US Commerce Department reported that the nation’s gross domestic product grew just 2.4 percent in the second quarter after adding 3.7 percent in the first quarter.

Prices regained some losses on the news that consumer sentiment rose to 67.8 in the last part of July after being measured at 66.5 earlier in the month, although sentiment was still down from its June reading of 76, and after the Chicago purchasing managers’ index came in 1t 62.3 in July, up from 59.1 percent in June and against an expected decline, showing that manufacturing activity in the region expanded a bit more quickly during the month.

September contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude had dropped 40 cents to $77.96 per barrel not long before 1 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude was last reported down 28 cents to $77.31 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Nymex August gasoline futures and August heating oil futures each dropped nearly a cent, to $2.09 per gallon and $2.03 per gallon respectively, while September natural gas futures added a cent to $4.84 per million British thermal units.

The retail price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was down slightly overnight to $2.741 per gallon on average nationally.

A gallon of regular unleaded cost more than that in the four biggest cities in the US, with drivers in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, the second-largest city in the US, paying the most of the four cities at an average of $3.123 per gallon, while New York City drivers paid $2.961 per gallon on average in the biggest city in the nation.

In the third largest US city, Chicago, drivers paid an average $2.945 per gallon at the pump, while in Houston, the fourth largest city in the US, it cost an average of $2.537 per gallon to fill up the gas tank.