Crude oil fell below US$101 a barrel Monday following reports that four Libyan oil terminals under militia control could soon reopen and possibly boost global supplies.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery slipped 70 cents to US$100.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price has hovered around US$100 a barrel for most of the past month.
Brent crude, used to set prices for international varieties of oil, dropped 90 cents to US$105.82 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
The official Libyan news agency said the country’s main militia in the east agreed to hand back control of four oil terminals it captured and shut down last summer while demanding a share of oil revenues. The shutdown has cost Libya billions of dollars.
Under the deal reached late Sunday, the militia would immediately hand over two terminals to the national government and return two others in a few weeks.
In other energy futures trading in New York, wholesale gasoline fell one cent to US$2.93 a U.S. gallon (3.79 litres), heating oil shed two cents to US$2.89 a gallon and natural gas rose four cents to US$4.48 per 1,000 cubic feet.