Sunday 18 December 2011

Oil Prices Retreat as Concerns over Europe’s Debt Rise

Europe’s increasing debt concerns have been pushing oil prices towards a three day low. The Eurozone has been constantly wrestling with mammoth sized debt and the only solution seems to be cutting down on expenditures and ask for international help. The leaders of European Union have been constantly toying with the idea of central financial control and balancing budgets. However several experts opine that such measures will reap hardly any noticeable benefits.

Spending deficits in the Eurozone is a potent threat to declining oil consumption. It also implies lesser imports of goods manufactured in countries like China and US. Many experts are of the opinion that the Eurozone is already on its way to recession and there are concerns that banks might fail drastically leading to further problems for businesses to increase income. Investors are gradually yet significantly losing confidence in the economic concerns of the Eurozone.

The Fitch Ratings has changed its outlook on France from a stable economy to a negative economy, owing to the country’s hefty load of debt. The Fitch ratings, is also to revise its credit ratings for six other nations that make use of the euro as its currency. The countries are Italy, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium and Cyprus.

Following this the Benchmark crude fell by 34 cents and reached $93.53 a barrel in New York. Earlier in the day prices were as low as $92.52 a barrel. Brent Crude used as landmark for pricing oil fell by 25 cents to reach $103 a barrel in London trading exchange.

Retail gasoline prices also fell by a penny on December 16, 2011 reaching $3.25 a gallon as reported by the AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. In other energy trading heating oil was low by 2.2 cents and reached $2.8005 a gallon, however gasoline futures and natural gas were unchanged.

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