Crude oil prices were steady this morning as market participants awaited the release of a weekly US petroleum supply snapshot, and after the Bush administration announced moves aimed at easing a fuel supply crunch.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery dropped 2 cents to $72.86 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract yesterday settled 45 cents lower at $72.88.
Gasoline futures inched up fractionally to $2.1300 a gallon, while heating oil fell marginally to $2.0580 a gallon. Natural gas declined 0.9 cent to $7.245 per 1,000 cubic feet.
President Bush gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority yesterday to relax regional clean-fuel standards to attract more imports of gasoline to the United States and to make it easier for supplies to be moved from one state to another.
Mr Bush also said he would defer shipments of crude oil into the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the fall.
The moves came as retail regular gasoline prices in the US were reported by the American Automobile Association to be near $2.92 a gallon, about 32 percent above year-ago levels, a month before the Memorial Day holiday, which traditionally kicks off the summer driving season, when demand peaks.
Concerns about gasoline supplies in the US ahead of the summer have been one of the various factors keeping a high floor under crude oil prices, which are 33 percent higher than a year ago.