Crude Settles Slightly Lower: Oil Alert

Oil futures lose 13 cents to settle at $66.71 Tuesday afternoon.

Author:: David Moss
Publish date:: Sep 29, 2009 3:55 PM EDT

NEW YORK (

) -- Oil futures continued to lose ground Tuesday, keeping under $67 following a mix of economic news.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the front-month contract for light, sweet crude settled at $66.71 per barrel after slipping 13 cents on the day.

A morning economic snapshot offered a mixed bag for investors. Housing stocks got a lift after the

Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index showed that home prices declined to a lesser extent in July than analysts were forecasting.

Still, the

consumer confidence index showed a worse-than-expected drop in September from August.

With concerns about Iran's nuclear program continuing to cloud the oil picture, stocks were apathetic in afternoon trading. The dollar, meanwhile, strengthened against some major currencies.

Later Tuesday afternoon and on Wednesday morning, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade organization, and the Energy Department will release last week's inventory data for crude. Many are expecting inventories to have amassed further on top of already high levels.

Also in the afternoon, shares for most of the oil sector were trading in the red.

Exxon Mobil

(XOM) - Get Report

Chevron

(CVX) - Get Report

and

Marathon Oil

(MRO) - Get Report

were all losing ground, down 0.6%, 1% and 1%, respectively.

ConocoPhillips

(COP) - Get Report

, which was in positive territory after receiving an analyst's upgrade in the morning, was down 1% before the closing bell.