Oil above $67
Ap, Undated
Oil prices were down slightly Friday after reaching a nine-month high overnight on worries that the U.S. refining industry can't meet peak summer gasoline demand.At midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for July delivery was down 26 cents at $67.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.39 to settle at $67.65 a barrel Thursday, the first time since September that Nymex crude closed above $67 a barrel. Brent crude for August delivery fell 49 cents to $70.87 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. The U.S. Energy Department reported Wednesday that refinery utilization fell last week, and that gasoline inventories did not grow. "The thing about those numbers is everybody knew that they (were) going to be struggling to keep up with gasoline demand as it was ... but they didn't seem to make any progress refining-wise," said Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
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