Oil Goes Up as Dollar Goes Down
May 22, 2009 by Mark Ellis
Filed under Business
A simultaneous increase in demand for oil on the part of China and wave of worry over the state of the US dollar resulted in the price of oil rising and the value of the dollar falling on Friday. For the most part, the rise in the price of oil comes off the back of the softening of the dollar.
Image: Flickr
Since oil is traded in dollars around the world, the value of the dollar and the price of oil are intertwined. The dollar continues to buckle under the burden of a huge load of debt and it suffers from analysts’ doubt about whether or not the dollar is still creditworthy.
The price for a barrel of crude oil has risen to $61.67 a barrel, while analysts agree that $60 a barrel is a safe price for oil to stay. Other factors in the rising price of oil include the turmoil in Nigeria, a country with many oil pipelines. Rising oil prices have already kicked up the national average price of gasoline across the United States, the average driver paying $2.39 per gallon.
