NEW YORK (Commodity Online) : Global oil prices continued their southern journey Friday to end the week on a losing note, mainly on reports of negative jobs data from world’s top energy consumer, the US.
Light sweet crude for August delivery dropped 81 cents to $72.14 a barrel while in London, Brent crude, also for August delivery, lost 69 cents to settle at $72.38 a barrel.
US Labor Department said 125,000 jobs were cut from the nation's payrolls in June. The drop was driven by layoffs of census workers. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent as 652,000 people stopped looking for work.
In other Nymex trading in August contracts, heating oil gave up 0.0049 cents to $1.9346 a gallon, gasoline futures lost 2.06 cents to $1.9767 a gallon and natural gas fell 2.9 cents to $4.825 per 1,000 cubic feet.
A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper and a more attractive purchase for investors holding other currencies and vice versa.
In Friday trading, the euro was up to $1.2533 from $1.2480 late Thursday in New York, while the British pound rose to $1.5194 from $1.5152.
