Oil’s wild ride

Crude looks set to finish a volatile year with the biggest yearly price gain since 1999.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices look set to end 2007 with the biggest gain this decade, climbing nearly 60 percent since the start of the year. But the ascent has been anything but steady.

Crude prices are on track to notch their biggest yearly gain since 1999 and end the year around $96 a barrel. Gasoline has followed suit, and is currently up over 30 percent from a year ago to over $3 a gallon.


The rise in prices has been dramatic and volatile. Energy prices tumbled at the start of the year, largely due to a swell in supplies amid an unusually warm winter and concerns over the health of the economy. Speculative investors also bailed out of oil futures.

Crude prices briefly dipped below $50 a barrel in the early part of 2007, falling to to nearly a 2-year low. Meanwhile, retail gasoline prices tumbled to a national average of $2.10 a gallon.

The drop in oil prices spooked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which continued production cuts started in October 2006 over the next few months, eventually taking about 1.5 million barrels a day off the market – or nearly 2 percent of the world’s daily output of about 85 million barrels a day.

CNN