Bloomberg.com is reporting that West Texas Intermediate for November delivery finished trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange at US$77.70 a barrel, the lowest price for front-month crude futures since last year.
Brent crude - closest in price to Grand Banks light, sweet - closed the day at US$74.09, a drop of almost eight and a half dollars from the day before. That puts crude oil $13 below the average price assumed by the provincial government at budget time last April.
At close of trading on Friday, crude futures up to April were below US$80 a barrel.
In other energy news, Harvest Energy - owners of the Come by Chance refinery - have delayed a planned $2.0 billion expansion of the 115K barrel per day refinery until 2010. Current economic turmoil is also forcing other energy companies to rethink plans in western Canada.
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