Oil prices drop below $60 a barrel

LONDON – Oil prices fell below $60 a barrel on Monday amid signs of growing petroleum inventories and after BP PLC said it had permission to restart the eastern half of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field.

“Hedge funds and investors have been bailing out because geopolitical tensions have eased and they also realize that inventories are high during this period of seasonally weak demand at the end of summer,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell 80 cents to $59.75 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe. November Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange dropped 94 cents to $59.47 a barrel.

Natural gas futures on the Nymex fell nearly 17 cents to $4.460 per 1,000 cubic feet