Oil Prices

Bankrupt Circuit City Stores Inc. said yesterday that it is going out of business and will shut down its 567 stores in the United States, including 15 in Maryland, after a plan to sell the company failed. The country's second-largest consumer electronics chain employs more than 30,000 people who will now be out of work. A bankruptcy judge approved the company's liquidation plan yesterday, and sales could begin as soon as today. The company's demise was just one of many layoff announcements yesterday from companies in various industries and highlighted how the weak economy is affecting different sectors.

WASHINGTON -- After a year of oil prices so high that analysts warned they might hit $100 a barrel soon, prices are falling, financial speculators are running for the exits and analysts are pondering whether oil could fall below $30 a barrel by spring. Oil cost $41 a barrel on average in July 2004, when its price began its climb. It's not farfetched to think that it might fall to that soon. Back then, gasoline sold nationally for about $1.90 a gallon. There's no guarantee that it'll happen again, but several factors point to at least a few months of lower oil and gasoline prices: Oil production globally is no longer drum-tight.

IT HAS been seven years since inflation exceeded 3 percent and 18 years since it reached double-digit levels.Inflation has lost its capacity to scare Americans. Time has wiped from memory those dreadful years from roughly 1966 to 1990, when inflation wiped out the wage gains of an entire generation, traumatized the nation's politics and brought down foreign governments with alarming frequency.Wall Street, where memories can be notoriously short, hasn't taken inflation seriously for years.

NEW YORK -- Crude oil rose more than 6 percent yesterday to a five-month high after some of the world's top producers agreed this week to meet in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to work on an agreement to cut output and boost prices.Saudi Arabia, the world's top producer, will meet with Mexico, Venezuela, Iran and others to hash out an agreement before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries convenes March 23.Oil fell to a 12-year low in December after OPEC failed to reduce supplies as expected.

THE DOGGED fall of oil prices is one of the big economic stories of the century, a lesson in grand adjustment wrought at the atomic level, in the danger of divining the future by projecting the present.Twenty years ago, Salomon Brothers predicted crude oil prices could hit $75 a barrel by 1990. MIT Professor Carroll Wilson called evaporating oil supplies "a ticking time bomb" that would wreck commerce and roil politics."We've tried to pin down the ways in which it will explode," Wilson told reporters, "if the free world doesn't act soon enough."

WASHINGTON -- U.S. consumer prices held steady in March for the second time in three months and retail sales tailed off after surging in January and February -- signs that the economy is poised for more low inflation and steady growth."

OIL PRICES continued their slide last week, tumbling to their lowest level in a dozen years on growing worries about oversupply as oil producers slashed prices to try to win customers. The situation was exacerbated by word that Iraq had agreed to a work schedule for clearing up outstanding disarmament issues. If it adheres to the timetable, it could resume oil exports as soon as October. Will oil prices continue falling? How much of an impact would Iraq's re-entry into the export market have?

NEW YORK -- Oil prices tumbled to their lowest level in 12 years yesterday on growing worries about oversupply and speculation that Iraq could start exporting again soon.Crude for July delivery fell $1.03, or 8.2 percent, to $11.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest settlement for a contract closest to expiration since Aug. 1, 1986, and the biggest one-day drop since the January 1991 Persian Gulf war. Prices are half what they were in October.Richard Butler, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, said in Baghdad yesterday that he hoped a work schedule he negotiated with Iraq over the weekend could clear up any disarmament issues by August.

WASHINGTON -- Producer prices registered their biggest drop in 4 1/2 years in January and builders continued to break ground on new housing at a rapid pace, signs the U.S. economy is poised for more growth without inflation."

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks rose yesterday for the first time in six sessions, led by airlines such as UAL Corp. and beaten-up bank shares, including J. P. Morgan & Co., as investors called previous estimates of Asia's damage to U.S. profits too pessimistic."

The holidays will be here before you know it, and if you haven't made arrangements to fly home for Grandma's pumpkin pie, do so as soon as possible. Airfare experts say you have until the end of the month - Saturday - to book Thanksgiving flights to lock in a favorable price and get a seat on the flight you want. "You have another 10 to 15 days in November to make Christmas and New Year's purchases before things get really crazy," says Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com. The holidays are usually busy, and it's typically a smart move to buy tickets early, before demand pushes up prices.

Since the surge of passenger cars following the establishment of the Interstate Highway System in 1956, America has been addicted to foreign oil. We are now importing nearly two-thirds of the oil we require, and about 70 percent of that is used to power America's fleet of cars, light trucks and 18-wheelers. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 1960 there were about 74 million passenger vehicles on America's roads. There are now about 250 million. Nearly all of them run on imported gasoline or diesel.

In what could be a harbinger of summer driving costs, the nation's average price of gasoline jumped 12 cents, or 6 percent, last week, after several weeks of relative stability, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic. In Maryland, the average price for a gallon of unleaded was $2.19 as of Monday, up from $2.03 a week earlier - in part because crude oil was approaching $60 a barrel. "Due in part to signs that the economic recession may be turning around, slightly higher gas prices may be a sign that the summer driving season will bring increased demand as motorists take to the roads," said Ragina C. Averella, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Bankrupt Circuit City Stores Inc. said yesterday that it is going out of business and will shut down its 567 stores in the United States, including 15 in Maryland, after a plan to sell the company failed. The country's second-largest consumer electronics chain employs more than 30,000 people who will now be out of work. A bankruptcy judge approved the company's liquidation plan yesterday, and sales could begin as soon as today. The company's demise was just one of many layoff announcements yesterday from companies in various industries and highlighted how the weak economy is affecting different sectors.

With the global economy in the throes of a recession, oil producers are facing their toughest business prospects in 25 years. Oil demand is expected to decline this year and next, the first drop since the energy shocks of the early 1980s. As economic growth slows sharply, oil prices have collapsed from their summer peaks in record time. The stunning speed of the downturn has made for a nightmare for producers, who face shrinking revenue next year. Oil has lost $100 a barrel, or 70 percent of its value, since July.

Oil prices spike on new Wall Street bailout SIOUX FALLS, S.D. : Oil prices jumped about $5 to nearly $55 a barrel yesterday, riding the coattails of the broader market on news that the U.S. government will bail out Citigroup. Light sweet crude for January delivery rose more than 9 percent, or $4.65, to $54.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices hit $55.30 at one point. Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., said oil initially seemed to be heading downward, dropping to $48 overnight even amid talk about possible production cuts by OPEC.

Exxon profit up record 58 percent for quarter In what will probably be the high-water mark for corporate profits for a while, Exxon Mobil reported yesterday that it broke its own record for the largest quarterly profit ever by a U.S. company, as oil prices hit a record over the summer and gasoline soared well above $4 a gallon across the nation. Exxon and other oil companies have seen their profits soar thanks to rising oil prices, but the last quarter might signal the end of the boom years.

Bidder for CEG makes offer for British group PARIS: French power provider EDF agreed yesterday to buy British Energy Group PLC for about $23.2 billion in cash, betting big on the prospects for Britain's nuclear industry at a time of growing global concern about greenhouse gas emissions. The deal, which has the blessing of the French and British governments, would hand over British Energy's eight nuclear plants to EDF - already the world's largest nuclear plant operator with 58 reactors in France.

Columbia Bank to merge with two others The Columbia Bank said it is merging with two of its sister banks, Hagerstown Trust Co. and The Peoples Bank of Elkton. The Columbia Bank will have total assets of $2.4 billion when the merger is completed. The three banks are all subsidiaries of Fulton Financial Corp. The merger, which is subject to the approval of bank regulators, is expected to be completed during the third quarter of next year. Andrea K. Walker Big fall in energy drops consumer prices WASHINGTON : Consumer prices in August posted the first monthly decline in nearly two years as Americans finally got some relief from surging energy prices.

Hurricane Ike unleashed its fury at gas pumps yesterday, with prices surging even as crude oil dropped to a five-month low of less than $100 a barrel. The hurricane shuttered refineries located around the Gulf of Mexico, limiting the availability of gasoline. That drove prices for gasoline upward. But without refineries to process crude oil into gasoline, demand for oil fell. The falling demand, coupled with relief from initial reports that drilling in the Gulf appeared to survive Ike relatively unscathed, helped bring crude oil prices to their lows during a special trading session yesterday.