Oil prices lingered below $70 a barrel today after several organizations said global demand for crude would improve only gradually as economies struggle to emerge from recession.
Benchmark crude for September delivery was up 12 cents to $69.57 a barrel by afternoon European electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, the contract fell $1.15 to settle at $69.45.
Of the organizations forecasting the size of the world’s appetite for crude, the International Energy Agency provided the most bullish figures. Today, it raised its figures for this year and next based on an expected increased in oil consumption in China despite weakening demand in Europe and North America.
The Paris-based agency added 70,000 barrels a day to its 2010 forecast of global oil demand. The new prediction of 85.3 million barrels a day is a 1.6 percent increase over this year.
In its closely watched monthly survey, the IEA also increased its 2009 forecast by 190,000 barrels a day to 83.9 million barrels a day, but noted this is still 2.7 percent lower than 2008.
The IEA said “these upward changes have barely dented the sharp demand contraction expected this year.
“The evidence of a bottoming out of the global recession is patchy, and global gas-oil demand — a key indicator of economic health — remains significantly subdued,” it said.
Both OPEC and the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration were more downbeat. The EIA on Tuesday said global crude demand will likely fall by 1.71 million barrels this year, more than its previous forecast of a drop of 1.56 million barrels.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline for September delivery fell by less than a penny to $2.04 a gallon and heating oil more than 1 cent to $1.90. Natural gas for September delivery was down more than 5 cents to fetch $3.49 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent prices fell 20 cents to $72.26 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. (AP)
