The price of a barrel of oil has fallen for four straight trading days, dropping $.76 today, finishing the session at $60.34. Today’s price is the lowest it has been in a little under a month – the last day oil closed below $61 per barrel was November 28.
The main reason behind today’s price drop is the continued warm weather throughout the United States which has helped to decrease demand and has helped world wide oil inventories continue to increase. According to the National Weather Service, demand for heating oil will be down nearly 23% this winter.
Over the past four trading days the price of oil has fallen nearly 4%; however the average price of a gallon of gasoline has remained relatively steady at $2.34 per gallon. As typically happens, gas prices tend to rise like a rocket and fall like a balloon.
Despite OPEC’s reduction in the daily output (down 1.2 million barrels per day starting in October and a planned reduction of 500,000 barrels per day starting in February), many analysts are predicting continued falling prices due to the mild winter.
Of course, once the East Coast gets slammed with a major blizzard, all of this will be for naught.