Worries surround Keystone pipeline closure By Myra P. Saefong and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures traded modestly lower Friday, ready to end a lackluster week little changed, pressured by strength in the U.S. dollar, but propped up by supply concerns following a disruption in a North American pipeline. Oil for November delivery CLX2 -1.95% fell 8 cents, or 0.1%, to trade at $92.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It wove in and out of positive territory, trading between a $93.05 and $91.63. “The big news in the land of black gold, Texas tea, is that the Keystone pipeline (which sends oil from Canada down to the Midwest to the tune of 500,000 barrels per day) has been temporarily shut,� said Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, in a report. The pipeline was shut Thursday for three days after TransCanada Corp. TRP -1.17% CA:TRP -0.25% said it found a “small anomaly� during routine tests. See: TransCanada shuts Keystone oil pipeline. “This is lending some support to prices on a day which is otherwise looking like the rest of the week for crude oil — decisively indecisive,� said Smith. Oil futures, which had lost ground on Thursday, were little changed for the week, after the November contract settled at $91.86 last Friday. For now, a stronger dollar kept pressure on oil prices. Commodities priced in dollars, such as oil, tend to weaken when the dollar gains, as they become more expensive for holders of other currencies. The ICE dollar index DXY +0.31% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six major global currencies, climbed to 79.574, up from 79.356 in late North American trading Thursday. The greenback continued higher after data Friday showed that U.S. existing home sales fell 1.7% in September to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.75 million, compared with expectations for a rate of 4.8 million. See: Sales of existing home sales drop in September. For oil, “bullish factors such as supply risks and the plentiful supply of liquidity by the central banks are currently counterbalanced by bearish factors such as the supply surplus and subdued demand prospects,� analysts at Commerzbank said in a note. “We assume that the uncertainty will continue for some time yet, but anticipate that the bullish factors will ultimately gain the upper hand as a result of the ultra-expansionary monetary policy pursued by the central banks,� they said. Energy products traded higher Friday, with heating oil for November delivery HOX2 -0.95% up nearly 2 cents, or 0.5%, at $3.20 a gallon as November gasoline RBX2 -1.56% added 1 cent, or 0.4%, to $2.76 a gallon. Week to date, gasoline was poised for a loss of almost 5%, while heating oil was down 0.6%. Natural-gas futures for November delivery NGX12 +1.48% added 4 cents, or 1%, to $3.62 per million British thermal units, trading around 0.3% higher for the week. Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London. Kristene Quan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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