Crude oil price slipped on Wednesday as restart of Trans Alaska pipeline boosted oil supply and drop of Goldman Sachs quarterly profit, huge decline in U.S. home construction starts caused economic worries, Xinhua reported.
Goldman Sachs posted a 53 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, in part reflecting lower results in fixed- income trading. The bank's fourth-quarter net income after payment of preferred stock dividends totaled 2.23 billion dollars, compared with 4.79 billion dollars a year earlier.
According to the Commerce Department, the housing starts in December last year fell 4.3 percent to annualized 529,000, the lowest level since October 2009, a sign the industry that triggered the recession continued to struggle for a recovery. This caused concerns about the world's largest economy.
Light, sweet crude for February delivery dropped 52 cents to 90. 86 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.