Reply #12: Oil falls below $53 in Asia after rising overnight

[ozymandius]

SINGAPORE – Oil prices fell below $53 a barrel Tuesday in Asia after surging overnight as investors mulled whether a U.S. government bailout of Citigroup Inc. restores enough confidence to staunch crude's slide since July.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery was down $1.68 to $52.82 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by late afternoon in Singapore.

The contract overnight rose $4.57 to settle at $54.50 after the Treasury Department announced a rescue of banking giant Citigroup. Fears the sprawling financial firm would collapse sent stock markets plunging and the price of oil to a 3-year low near $49 last week — a third of its peak near $150 a barrel in July.

But some oil market watchers think euphoria over the government lifeline for Citigroup will soon give way to more dismal news about a severe global economic slowdown and trigger a test of the lows that oil hit last week.

....

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures dropped 1.49 cent to $1.13 a gallon. Heating oil slid 1.94 cents to $1.77 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery fell 1.1 cents to $6.82 per 1,000 cubic feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices