NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices that a few months ago looked as if they would just keep rising fell yesterday to less than half the record high of $147.27 they reached this summer.
Crude dropped to $69.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a 14-month low, after the government reported massive increases in U.S. crude and gasoline supplies.
Investors took the news as more evidence that a global credit crisis and a shaky economy are curbing demand for oil.
At the pump, a gallon of regular gasoline shed another 4 cents overnight to a national average of $3.084, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
"It's dropping like a rock," said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced yesterday that it is moving up an emergency meeting to discuss whether a production cut is needed. Cartel officials will meet next Friday, instead of Nov. 18, in Vienna, Austria.
