Oil prices fell a dollar after Nigerian oil unions suspended their two-day strike that caused to disrupt oil shipments from the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter over the weekend.
Ongoing strike suspension gives an ease to the market, as light, sweet crude for July delivery dropped 69 cents to US$64.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which had soared more than US$1 to US$65.20 a barrel before the US long weekend. Brent crude contracts for July delivery fell 97 cents to US$69.72 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Nigerian labor union strike, which forced international oil market to dance on its toe, ended after Nigerian government agreed to increase its employee’s remunerations by 15 percent. The unions kick start the strike on Thursday and threatened to disrupt the drilling and its exports in hopes of reversing the sale of government refineries.
After the negotiation between government and Nigerian oil industry workers, market has been normalizes as usual. Nigeria’s state oil company holds the majority stake in joint ventures with international oil companies that account for more than 90 percent of the country’s oil exports.
Nigerian strike averted news came at a time, when US is under shadow of destructive hurricane. Meteorologists’ has forecasts a above normal hurricane activity, which will definitely will be deciding factor of oil prices in the coming month.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures were down by more than three cents to US$1.9085 a gallon (3.8 liters), and natural gas prices fell 5 cents to US$7.590 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Image: glennformayor
Via: CNN
