Oil prices rebounded Friday amid cold weather in the United States, a major consumer of heating oil, and as traders watched for signs that OPEC members were cutting output.
Concerns were also stoked by a threat from the two main Nigerian oil workers’ unions to strike next week in protest of rising violence in the country’s [...]

Sugar fell to a three- month low Tuesday as tumbling prices for energy eroded the appeal of sugar cane, which is used to make ethanol — an alternative to gasoline.
The price of sugar fell 20 percent last year on speculation that global production would outpace demand. Crude oil fell Tuesday to its lowest level in [...]

Crude oil fell more than 2 percent in New York, the biggest drop in six weeks, as mild U.S. weather curbs heating-fuel consumption.
Home-heating demand in the Northeast, the region responsible for 80 percent of U.S. heating-oil use, will be 26 percent below normal through Jan. 2, said Weather Derivatives, a forecaster in Belton, Missouri. Natural [...]

Crude oil fell below $57 a barrel Thursday for the first time in more than two weeks after an Energy Department report showed increases in U.S. inventories of natural gas, a competing fuel.
Natural gas supplies rose five billion cubic feet, or 141 million cubic meters, to 3.45 trillion cubic feet last week, the report showed. [...]

Oil prices edged higher Tuesday, after tumbling more than $2 a barrel the previous day as traders anticipated that U.S. supply data due out this week would show rising inventories of crude.
Traders were also doubtful about OPEC’s ability to implement its plan to cut 1.2 million barrels a day of production — or that it [...]

Crude oil futures stayed around $60 a barrel Wednesday ahead of a weekly U.S. oil data release, with an expected increase in the country’s inventories dampening bullish sentiment.
Despite last week’s decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output, rising global crude stocks have had a bearish effect, at least for the near [...]

Brazil’s 2007-08 ethanol exports could slip to 2.5 billion liters, down about 20% from an estimated 3.1 billion liters this season, as the U.S. begins to sell ethanol abroad next year due to excess stocks, the president of sugar consultancy Datagro said Friday.
This year, the U.S. has been Brazil’s principal buyer of ethanol, in large [...]

U.S. crude oil futures ended more than a dollar higher on Friday as analysts warned the death of
Iraq’s al Qaeda leader Musab al-Zarqawi on Thursday would not end threats to Iraq’s battered oil industry.
There are other militant groups that could intensify their efforts to carry out sectarian violence and continue to destabilize oil production and [...]