Benchmark crude holds above $82
NEW YORK -- Oil prices held almost steady, above $82 a barrel Tuesday, propped up by consumer confidence numbers that were better than expected.
Benchmark crude for May delivery added 4 cents to $82.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude fell 35 cents at $80.82 on the ICE futures exchange.
Crude prices have stabilized after a raucous 2008, when a barrel of oil soared above $147 in the summer and then tumbled below $33 in the winter. Oil has wavered between $70 and $80 a barrel for the past several months.
That trend will likely continue without any major news about the economy's recovery, analysts said.
A number of big investors like Bank of America Merrill Lynch think oil will eventually push above $90 a barrel later this year. Other economists and analysts see oil holding steady, saying huge global supplies and tepid demand will continue to keep prices where they are.
One of the major issues driving energy trading this year is the challenge of pinpointing consumer demand. U.S. fuel consumption has grown slowly this year, but economists disagree about how much of that is due to huge government stimulus spending.
"We've never seen a world being pumped up with this kind of stimulus," analyst Phil Flynn said. "You've got all these signs that things are getting better economically, but we really don't know the endgame."
Flynn said oil will probably stay in its current range without any major economic developments. A military conflagration in Iran would certainly push oil prices higher, he said. On the other hand, oil prices should tumble if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates as the economy recovers.
On Tuesday, oil got a lift from the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which showed that Americans' confidence in the economy rebounded in March. Also, home prices in January showed the smallest annual decline in almost three years, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index.
In other Nymex trading in April contracts, heating oil and gasoline were both steady at $2.1191 a gallon and $2.2622 a gallon, respectively. Natural gas added 7 cents to $3.986 per 1,000 cubic feet.