NEW YORK (AFP) – Oil prices rose sharply Monday as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensified and major crude producer Iran said OPEC would hold a special meeting next month.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for February, shot up 2.47 dollars to close at 48.81 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February rallied [...]

BOSTON – Citgo, the Venezuelan government’s Texas-based oil subsidiary, has suspended shipments of heating oil for poor families in the United States, citing falling oil prices and the world economic crisis, the nonprofit organization that distributes the fuel said Monday.
The controversial program gave fuel from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government to 200,000 households in 23 [...]

BAGHDAD — Iraq announced on Wednesday that it would begin a second round of bids to license international oil companies to develop 11 oil and gas fields or groups of fields.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, said at a news conference that he hoped that these fields could be producing 2 to 2.5 million barrels of [...]

Investors respond to a weaker dollar, rising stock prices and grim economic reports.
By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The price of oil fell Tuesday, after a big rally in the previous session, as dour economic reports darkened the outlook for already weak demand for oil and gasoline.
A weaker dollar and rising stock [...]

By CHRIS KAHN
Oil prices dipped below $38 a barrel Tuesday on fresh evidence of weakness in the U.S. housing market and a shrinking gross domestic product that suggests the recession may be worsening.
A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, [...]

Oil prices fell further below $40 in Asian trade on Tuesday in a market plagued by weak energy demand, dealers said.
New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, shed 77 cents to $39.14 a barrel in morning trade after sliding $2.45 to close at $39.91 on the New York Mercantile Exchange [...]

Light, sweet crude for February delivery fell $2.45, or nearly 6 percent, to settle at $39.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
By the Associated Press
Oil prices tumbled below $40 a barrel Monday as reports from manufacturers like Toyota and Caterpillar pointed to a worsening global economic climate and serious deterioration in energy demand.
Light, [...]

THE outlook for Australia’s coal exporters has continued to weaken, with reports of further falls in contract thermal coal prices.
Japanese newsletter The Tex Report said first coal contracts for Japan’s next financial year had been signed, with utilities getting coal at the export port at between $US70 and $US80 a tonne — up to a [...]

By Stephan Kueffner
Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said he’ll maintain the U.S. dollar as his country’s currency amid an “extremely grave” economic crisis sparked by the collapse of oil.
“It would be stupidity to drop the dollar under these circumstances,” Correa said in his weekly radio-and-television address.
Speculation has mounted that Correa, a critic [...]

PHOENIX (AP) — Oil prices tumbled below $40 a barrel for the first time since the summer of 2004 Wednesday despite an announcement from OPEC of a record production cut of 2.2 million barrels a day.
Markets had already priced in a vastly reduced flow of oil and traders focused instead on troubling economic data that [...]