SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Falling crude demand in the world's largest consuming nation drove oil prices Monday to a new low for the year as the U.S. enters a corporate earnings season expected to be fraught with bad news, according to The Associated Press.

The strained economy outweighed factors that would normally boost the market - Mideast tensions, signs that OPEC was implementing large-scale production cuts, the ongoing Gazprom-Ukraine gas dispute and a winter season expected to deliver the coldest weather in a decade.