Crude oil slides under $100 per barrel for first time since July

Crude oil prices dropped under $100 per barrel in New York Monday for the first time since July. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate crude oil gave up $1.06 to reach $99.75 per barrel. Reformulated blendstock gasoline prices shed 0.85 cents to $2.6647 per gallon. Home heating oil shed 1.61 cents to $3.0193 per gallon. Natural gas was added 1 penny to $3.78 per million British thermal units. At the pump, the national average price of unleaded gasoline dropped to $3.349 per gallon from Sunday's $3.353, AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report said. Crude had been over $100 per barrel since July and spiked above $110 in early September after President Barack Obama threatened a military strike against Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians in the country's continuing civil war. As that threat has receded, oil prices have retreated, as well. Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the general secretary of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said the world is well-supplied. In step with that assessment, Japan recently reported that crude oil imports in September dropped 19 percent, the largest decline in 11 months.