Oil eases to near $95 a barrel as enthusiasm ebbs over strong US jobs report ends

The price of oil edged down Monday as enthusiasm over last week’s strong U.S. jobs report faded.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery was down 44 cents at US$95.17 a barrel by midafternoon in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract jumped $1.62 on Friday after a report showed U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 165,000 jobs in April. That drove down the unemployment rate to a four-year low of 7.5 per cent and suggested the U.S. economic recovery may be gathering pace.

Demand for oil tends to increase when the economy picks up, as factories produce more, people drive more and businesses use more fuel to ship goods.

Prices had rallied temporarily earlier Monday on news of an Israeli military strike in Syria that raised concern of an expansion in conflict in the oil-rich Mideast region. But the market eased back down as European trading began.

Brent crude, which is used to set prices of oil from the North Sea used by many U.S. refiners, was down 14 cents at US$104.05 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex, wholesale gasoline fell 0.01 of a cent to US$2.82 a U.S. gallon; heating oil was flat at US$2.88 a gallon and natural gas fell 0.8 of a cent to US$4.033 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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