Oil prices rebounded Monday from early declines as traders focused on a refinery outage in Kansas and new accusations about Iran's role in Lebanon and Iraq, according tp AP. Early in the day, investors sold to lock in profits from last week's rally, which drove prices above $70 a barrel for the first time since August. But in midafternoon, light, sweet crude for August delivery rose 14 cents to $70.82 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from a low of $69.57. On Friday, oil prices rose to close above $70 a barrel for the first time in 10 months. On Monday, gasoline futures for August fell 0.43 cent to $2.2385 a gallon. Earlier in the day, gas futures were off by more than 4 cents a gallon. August Brent crude futures rose $1.09 to $72.50 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Nymex heating oil futures for August were up 1.91 cents to $2.0615 a gallon, while natural gas prices fell 4.3 cents to $6.73 per 1,000 cubic feet. The closure of a 112,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Coffeyville, Kansas, due to flooding reignited concerns about the refining industry's ability to keep pace with summer gasoline demand, said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Man Financial Inc.
