The price of retail gasoline drift to 58 months low

Price of retail gasoline declined Friday to the lowest level in nearly five years. And while crude futures rose, analysts see as a temporary pause in a range, as the arc down the recession is spreading.

"We pay about one billion dollars a day less than they were in July" for gasoline, "said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service . "We could probably bail to certain banks and perhaps even some of the auto companies save money."

But the cheap gas is bitter news for an economy that shed millions of jobs this year. Pump prices are driven down because most Americans are more stay at home. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the travel habits of Americans are "change" as drivers clocked least 9 million miles in October, even if gas prices plunged.

Terrible holiday retail sales, employment and the reduction of uncertainty in world trade all suggest that demand for energy companies and consumers continue to decline over the next year.

"On Tuesday or Wednesday, one can easily see nearby crude oil to $ 3 less than it is today," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates.

New evidence that OPEC has reduced production and a weakening dollar pushed the price of crude oil Friday in light trading.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose 2.36 U.S. dollars, more than 6 percent, to close at 37.71 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trade was closed Thursday for Christmas.

In London, February Brent rose 1.76 dollars to settle at 38.45 dollars per barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange.

Tumbling oil prices have caused a huge drop in the price of retail gasoline.

At the pump, gas prices fell to six retail tenths of a cent overnight to a national average of 1642 U.S. dollars per gallon Friday, well below the year ago using 2981 U.S. dollars per gallon according to the AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. The last time the retail price of this passage was low in February 2004, Kloza said.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which represents about 40 percent of world supply, announced cuts in crude oil production by more than 4 million barrels per day, seeking to stem falling prices. OPEC, however, have a history of ignoring quotas announced crude and traders await concrete evidence that the 13-nation has been tightening the tap.

Analysts noted that the release of the United Arab Emirates advising clients to reduce the supply almost immediately. State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said that reducing the production of certain grades of crude over 15 percent next month.

"For the moment at least, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appear to be in full compliance with the cuts," said analyst Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.

OPEC May meet again in Kuwait City from 19 January to discuss further production cuts. The group of the next official meeting is on March 15 in Vienna.

Investors in recent months have ignored the supply cuts from OPEC, questions of conduct clearly market demand. What is kept crude oil prices in four years, is the constant drumbeat of bleak low economic news shows that consumers are not spending as they did.

The latest comes from a preliminary report from MasterCard SpendingPulse, said that retail sales fell between 5.5 percent and 8 percent during the holiday season, compared to last year. The exception cars and gas sales, which fell 2 percent to 4 percent, according to SpendingPulse.

SpendingPulse is a division of MasterCard Advisors, which tracks total sales paid by credit card, checks and money.

Crude rose 70 per cent of its value since July and this month has fallen by more than 17 dollars per barrel, down 30 percent.

Tom Kloza said he knows that oil prices are ready for a sustained recovery in global demand is consistent with last year's levels for several weeks.

"Before you turn the corner, you need to get the angle," said Kloza. "And now we are seeing the demand for gasoline running over 3 percent to 5 years behind levels .

Eyes of investors more evidence that the fall in consumer demand in the United States and Europe is undermining the growth of export-dependent Asia, as production in major Japanese manufacturers fell by the largest margin ever in November.

Japanese industrial production fell 8.1 percent in November from a month earlier, the biggest drop since the government began measuring such data in 1953, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry , Said Friday.

The decline followed a fall of 3.1 percent in October, and the government expects another 8 percent plunge in December.

"These are very ugly figures show that worsened the recession in Japan," said Christoffer Moltke-Leth, director of sales for the trading of Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore. "I do not see a catalyst to bring crude higher. We will probably test $ 30. "

Many companies probably bleak report sales for the fourth quarter and in May reduced the use of massive expectations impairment or a time of the indictment, Moltke-Leth said.

"I think many entrepreneurs want to do everything bad in the fourth quarter because the market should be so bad, why not put all that there can," he said. "There will be a lot of bad corporate news in the coming weeks, and will strengthen the demand for destruction of the oil issue. "

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 5.17 cents to settle at 88.4 cents per gallon. The heating oil gained 4.67 cents to settle at 1245 dollars a gallon while natural gas for January delivery fell 8.4 cents to settle at 5826 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic feet.