More Good Gasoline News for Consumers

The news just gets better and better for oil consumers--and worse and worse for oil producers.

Crude-oil prices tumbled Wednesday to a five-month low in New York after an Iranian official said it is unlikely that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will announce new output cuts when it meets next week.

Cuts of 2.6 million barrels a day by OPEC this year were too small to eliminate a global glut that sent prices down 39% in the last 12 months.

Mehdi Hosseini, Iran’s deputy oil minister, said OPEC “has done its best” to prop up oil prices and probably won’t cut more when it meets Wednesday.

“OPEC countries are suffering, and they need to export as much as they can, even if it’s cheap,” said Gary Carney, crude-oil buyer for Texaco Trading and Transportation in Oklahoma City.

In New York futures trading, December crude oil fell 31 cents, or 2.5%, to $12.14 a barrel, the lowest closing price since June 19.

Prices are approaching the 12-year low of $11.42 reached on June 15.

The diminished likelihood of a U.S. military attack on Iraq also has helped pummel oil.

The oil surplus, which in the U.S. has left oil inventories 8% higher than a year ago, is “just ugly, ugly, ugly,” said Tom Bentz, senior vice president of energy at Cresvale International in New York.

Unless, of course, you’re an oil consumer--enjoying gasoline prices at their lowest levels in four years.