The price of petroleum dropped as traders returned from the long Labor Day weekend in the U.S., with wariness about the U.S. economy and sovereign debt in the euro-zone dominating the financial chatter. On the IntercontinentalExchange, West Texas Intermediate light, sweet crude oil futures for October delivery dropped nearly 1 percent to $73.37 per barrel.
Brent crude oil futures, which are more internationally-oriented than the U.S.-focused WTI futures, were also in the red, declining 0.13 percent to trade at $76.77 per barrel.
"There's a lot of European bank fears resurfacing again this morning, and the euro's broken down and the dollar's gotten stronger," said Tom Bentz, a broker with BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York, told Bloomberg News. "That's helping to put some pressure on oil."
Crude oil futures have been strongly correlated with equities markets lately. Consumption of petroleum and its derivatives products tends to fluctuate with the economic fortunes of the major developed economies, although emerging powers like China are using up a larger and larger share of the globe's most important energy resource.
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