Oil Closes Week Below $129 a Barrel
Oil plunged more than $15 this week, finishing Friday’s trading below $129 a barrel, Bloomberg reported.
Crude futures 41 cents Friday following a drop of more than $5 Thursday, to close the week’s trading at $128.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg said.
Oil had hit an overall record of $147.27 a barrel last Friday and set a closing-price Nymex record of $145.29 on July 3.
The late-week declines were attributed in part to the prospect of a dialogue between the United States and Iran, as President Bush will dispatch a high-ranking State Department official to meet with Iranian counterparts in Geneva, Switzerland, Bloomberg said.
Analysts also pegged the decline in part to the slowing world economy and a Department of Energy report Wednesday that showed inventories rose last week and demand for gasoline fell, Bloomberg reported.
