Oil tumbles below $77 as hurricane fears ease

Oil prices tumbled below $77 a barrel Tuesday in Asia on signs Tropical Storm Alex would likely miss most of the rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving supplies undisrupted.

Benchmark crude for August delivery was down $1.69 to $76.56 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 61 cents to settle at $78.25 on Monday.

Alex gained strength and appeared on track to become a hurricane Tuesday before it makes landfall very near the Mexico-U.S. border sometime late Wednesday, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

The tropical storm's center wasn't expected to …