Crude oil prices fell more than 2 percent Monday as world powers stepped up efforts to broker a truce between Israel and militants in Lebanon, the Associated Press reports.
But perhaps the bigger surprise in the energy complex was the sharp decline for natural gas futures, which plunged by almost 9 percent despite a heatwave that drove-up demand for gas-fired power plants.
Light sweet crude for August delivery slid $1.73 to settle at $75.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The front-month futures contract reached an intraday record of $78.40 a barrel this past Friday before settling at an all-time closing high of $77.03.
