Crude Oil Prices to Decline by $10 to $15, Pickens Tells CNBC

Crude oil prices will decline by as much as $15 a barrel in the second quarter, and will touch $100 per barrel in the second half of the year, billionaire hedge- fund manager T. Boone Pickens told financial news network CNBC.

``Oil is going to back off here in the second quarter,'' Pickens said in an interview on CNBC. ``It'll be back above $100 in the second half.''

He said natural-gas prices were ``unusually high'' now, and will retreat after a current spell of cold weather in the U.S.

He told CNBC that he was short on both natural gas and oil. He didn't provide any more detail on his short positions in both commodities. A short position is a bet that prices will decline.