The benchmark oil for March delivery rose $ 1.73 to $ 79.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which was its highest close in over a month. &l1000t;/P>
In London, Brent North Sea rose $ 1.51 to $ 77.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange forward contracts.
Crude oil prices recorded several increases this season against new signs of growth in the U.S. economy. One day after the government reported progress in industrial production and construction of houses, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported that manufacturing improvements. Your sector index rose to 17.6 in February, up from 15.2 in January.
On the morning of Thursday, the Labor Department announced that the number of Americans who first-time applicants for financial support, unemployment rose 31,000, to 473,000, last week. Analysts had forecast a slight reduction.
Oil has traded between 69 and 84 dollars a barrel on the most recent six months as the world economy recovers from recession, although oil demand in developed countries remains weak.
The U.S. government also reported Thursday that crude and gasoline inventories rose last week. Crude stocks rose 3.1 million barrels (0.9%) to 334.5 million barrels.
If natural gas prices fell nearly 4% after the government said inventories remained above average despite the snow storms in recent weeks on the East Coast. Natural gas is used in homes and power plants, and therefore tend to decrease reserves in the winter.
Natural gas fell 21.4 cents to $ 5.172 a thousand feet cu.
In other New York trading contracts for March heating oil rose 4.49 cents to $ 2.0516 a gallon (3.8 liters) and gasoline rose 6.21 cents to $ 2.0692 a gallon.
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