Crude oil futures fell slightly Thursday after setting another trading record overnight, as investors locked in gains from crude's ongoing rally, according to AP. Light, sweet crude for May delivery fell 7 cents from Wednesday's close to settle at $114.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the contract's first lower close in a week. The contract had hit a trading record of $115.54 per barrel in electronic trading as the dollar fell to a new low against the euro. But crude pulled back when the dollar strengthened. May gasoline futures rose 1.88 cents to settle at a record $2.9578 a gallon on the Nymex after earlier rising to a trading record of $2.9749 a gallon. Overall, crude prices have jumped more than 4 percent this week, in part due to the falling dollar, as well as a host of supply and demand concerns in the U.S. and abroad. A U.S. Energy Department report on inventories, released Wednesday, showed gasoline supplies fell 5.5 million barrels last week _ much more than what analysts had expected. That slide comes as the U.S. heads into its peak summer driving season, a period when demand and retail gasoline prices surge. The department's Energy Information Administration report also showed crude inventories fell 2.3 million barrels for the same period. Also offering support to higher crude prices is an International Energy Agency report that said Russian oil production dropped this year for the first time in a decade. Other factors include continued breakneck growth in China's economy and the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates at least twice more this year, which will further weaken the dollar. The combination of all these factors will push oil prices even higher in coming weeks, said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Florida, trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com. «I think we're going at least to $125 (per barrel),» Cordier said. «That'll probably translate to about $3.80 (a gallon for gasoline) at the pump.» Retail gasoline prices have steadily climbed, hitting new records as crude prices have surged. At the pump, the average national price of a gallon of unleaded gas rose 1.9 cents overnight to a record $3.418 a gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. In other Nymex trading Thursday, May heating oil futures fell 1.56 cents to settle at $3.2674 a gallon.
