U.S. oil futures down 5 months in a row; natural-gas futures drop 50% for the quarter
Oil futures finished higher on Friday, but U.S. prices logged a fifth straight month of declines, as well as a loss for the quarter. "It's been a difficult quarter for crude oil prices with expectations that a China reopening would serve to galvanize prices back to $100 a barrel proving to be wildly misplaced," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK. Natural-gas futures, meanwhile, posted hefty losses for the quarter, with Matthew Sherwood, senior Europe and lead commodities analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, partly attributing the decline to a "weather-related slump" in U.S. demand. May West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.30, or nearly 1.8%, to settle at $75.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices based on the front-month contract, lost 1.8% for the month and 5.7% for the first quarter, according to Dow Jones Market Data. May natural gas added 11 cents, or 5.3%, to settle at $2.216 per million British thermal units, but fell over 50% for the quarter.
-Myra P. Saefong
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 31, 2023 14:59 ET (18:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
, 
, 
Copyright ©2023. All rights reserved.