Benchmark crude rose $1.33 to finish the day at $87.40 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price many international kinds of oil, fell 20 cents to end at $109.56 per barrel in London.
In the U.S., the government said jobless rates fell in half of the states last month as hiring picked up. That pointed to rising demand for oil and gas as unemployment lines shrink.
On Wall Street, stocks surged following strong earnings reports. The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 220 points, or 2 percent, in afternoon trading.
At the pump, gasoline prices fell less than a penny Friday to a national average of $3.468 per gallon. Pump prices are about 64 cents higher than a year ago. Drivers in the West and the Northeast are paying the highest prices for gas. Prices are lowest in the South.
In other energy trading, heating oil fell 1.26 cents to finish at $3.0175 a gallon. Gasoline futures rose about a penny to end at $2.6846 a gallon. Natural gas was virtually unchanged at $3.6290 per thousand cubic feet.
this is a good comment Avinash, but is the oil a natural supply and demand market, when OPEC controls the amount of oil that is released into the market?
good comments. Does the fact that the pump prices are 64 cents higher than a year ago have an effect on the demand for gasoline? Won’t this decrease demand?
Excellent comments and questions. Oil is considered to be indeed controlled by OPEC in what is a called a collusive Oligopoly, therefore acting like a monopoly.
you score 5