Oil plummets more than $2
Crude plunges over $2 a barrel, sinking ahead of change from April to May futures contract.
March 20, 2006: 3:20 PM EST
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices tumbled $2.35 to $60.42 a barrel on Monday, as investors bailed out just ahead of the switch to the new futures trading contract. The fall in U.S. light, sweet crude for April delivery represented a 3.8 percent slip in price.
The contract, which expires at the end of Tuesday's session,
fell 81 cents on Friday, but still ended the week up nearly $3 on concerns about potential supply interruptions.
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The May contract for crude, which begins Wednesday, also fell sharply, sinking $2.24 to $61.96, or about 3.6 percent.
Earlier in the session, crude prices fell on profit-taking and on news that a weekend cut in Nigeria's crude output looked less severe than first thought.
Italian oil company ENI, whose Agip unit operates the pipeline, said that 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) of output had been cut by saboteurs at the weekend but that production should resume by month-end.
That was a speedier recovery than investors had expected when they first heard the news, which pushed up prices in early trade.
Royal Dutch Shell has yet to set a restart date for the 555,000 bpd of Nigerian output that it and other equity holders haven't produced since attacks on Feb. 18.
Oil prices rallied last week on crude supply concern and growing worries that changes to U.S. gasoline specifications may stretch the refining system as the summer driving period approaches.
U.S. gasoline dipped 1.01 cents to $1.85 a gallon on Monday, but its premium to crude remained near the five-month high struck last week.
U.S. crude prices have also been buoyed by worries that Iran's nuclear row with the West could hit its exports, overshadowing hefty crude stocks that many analysts now see as additional insurance by a fearful industry.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he was not worried by swelling U.S. crude oil inventories, which like gasoline stand at their highest level for nearly seven years.
"I believe, in these somewhat tense and uncertain times, it is only logical for consuming countries to build stocks," he said on Sunday. "In normal situations very high stocks would have a depressing effect on prices, but these are not normal times."
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Because we will be using more fuel.....not because the cost of crude has gone up, the price of gas is increasing!!!!!! Its not enough that the prices are falsely inflated as it is.....but they need to gouge us more because we will now be out driving around more to travel and vacation due to the better weather.......so they feel they can tuck it up our backside some more and the wonderful government lets them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh........... so its just my perception 
Hey Jenn
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