US crude oil drops $1.50 Tuesday

Crude oil prices continued to drift lower Tuesday, sliding toward $103 per barrel as demand increasingly appears to be waning. Crude oil is up from early June, when prices hovered around $92 per barrel, but down from above $108 in the middle of July. On Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped to $103.08, off $1.62 from Monday's peak of $104.70. A late rebound added 9 cents in after-hours trading to hit $103.17. Reformulated blendstock gasoline was off 0.95 cents in late trading to $2.9655 per gallon. Home heating oil shed 0.15 cents to $3.0075 per gallon. Natural gas added 2.2 cents to $3.454 per million British thermal units. Traders are anticipating reports this week that spell out a slower economic recovery, including a government report on the gross domestic product due Wednesday and a Labor Department report on the employment situation due Friday. On Tuesday, the S&P Case-Shiller home price index and the Conference Board's consumer confidence measure both came in under expectations. At the pump, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was $3.624 Tuesday, down from Monday's $3.631, the AAA Fuel Gauge report said.