Crude Oil Prices Continue to Slide

Crude oil and natural gas futures were under heavy selling pressure Thursday, the former driven by a continuing downtrend and the latter by a surprisingly large build in weekly storage levels.

Texas light sweet crude for August delivery was recently down $3.85 at $130.75 a barrel, and Brent crude was losing $3.59 at $132.22 a barrel.

Reformulated gasoline was losing 9 cents to $3.19 a gallon, and heating oil was off 6 cents at $3.78 a gallon. Near-term natural gas was down 89 cents at $10.51 per million British thermal units -- a nearly three-month low -- after the Energy Information Administration revealed that total U.S. stockpiles grew by 104 billion cubic feet during the week ended July 11. Analysts were expecting an 88 BCF increase, according to a survey conducted by Bloomberg. ...