Crude oil price closes below $85 a barrel

Posted on Jul 7, 2012 in Business | 0 comments

A weak jobs report sank the price for a barrel of crude oil, which lost $2.77 to close at $84.45 per barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The U.S. Labor Department reported 80,000 jobs were created in June. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.2 percent.

Natural gas settled down 17 cents to $2.78 per million British thermal units.

Gasoline dropped 5 cents to end the session at $2.72 a gallon.

Home heating oil shed 6 cents to settle at $2.71 a gallon, its largest one-day percentage decline since June 21. The product was unchanged on the week, however.

At the pump, the national average price of unleaded gasoline gained 2 cents, reaching $3.358 per gallon from Thursday”s $3.338, AAA said.

Copyright 2012 by United Press International