Crude oil futures rose Monday, after drifting down earlier in the day, due to expectations of strong demand going into the Memorial Day weekend.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 65 cents to $49.30 a barrel in afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil gained almost a penny to $1.3770 a gallon, while unleaded gasoline fell 1.2 cents to $1.4070 a gallon. On London’s International Petroleum Exchange, July Brent slipped 7 cents to $47.96 a barrel.
Crude prices are still down about $9 since hitting an all-time high of $58.28 a barrel on April 4. Prices have been affected by a U.S. Department of Energy report that revealed a build of 334 million barrels in the previous week, the 13th increase in the past 14 weeks.
