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Oil futures were flat to slightly lower Friday, headed for a monthly gain but another round of quarterly losses as June comes to a close, with crude prices remaining shadowed by worries over the economic outlook.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery
CL00,
-0.20% CLQ23,
-0.20%
was off 14 cents, or 0.2%, at $69.72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
August Brent crude
BRNQ23,
-0.04% ,
the global benchmark, was flat at $74.34 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. September Brent
BRN00,
-0.05% BRNU23,
-0.05% ,
the most actively traded contract, fell 6 cents, or 0.1%, to $74.45 a barrel. - Back on Nymex, July gasoline fell 0.6% to $2.603 a gallon, while July heating oil rose 1.1% to $2.441 a gallon.
-
August natural gas
NGQ23,
-1.30%
dropped 1% to $2.673 per million British thermal units.
Market drivers
Oil futures were headed for monthly gains but WTI was set for a second consecutive quarterly decline — off 7.7% through Thursday’s close — and Brent was headed for a fourth straight quarterly loss — down 6.8%.
Fears of a U.S. recession have faded in response to a continued stream of upbeat economic data, but analysts said pessimism continues to hang over the oil market.
U.S. data due next week, includes readings from purchasing managers and the June jobs report, but the figures are unlikely to dispel the widespread gloom, said Barbara Lambrecht, commodity analyst at Commerzbank, in a note.
“After all, even if sentiment were to have brightened in the manufacturing and service sectors, market participants would only interpret this as meaning that the Fed will have room to step on the brakes to a greater extent,” she wrote. “In turn, this would result in oil demand weakening — admittedly not in the short term, but with an increased probability in the medium term.”
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