NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures rallied more than 5% Thursday, gaining the most in more than three months as a broad rally in equity markets and a decline in continuing U.S. jobless claims improved sentiment in the energy markets. Crude for September delivery gained $3.59, or 5.7%, to end at $66.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The percentage gain is the biggest since April 9. The rally came after oil tumbled 5.8% Wednesday, as government data showed a bigger-than-expected buildup in crude inventories precipitated by weaker demand. Stocks moved broadly higher on Wall Street, easily erasing the Wednesday's declines. Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!xom/quotes/nls/xom (XOM 70.72, -0.71, -0.99%) , however, fell after it reported a 66% slump in second-quarter net income. "Stocks are pulling crude up today," said Zachary Oxman, managing director at TrendMax Futures. "The moves down yesterday were predicated on a weak market and the implication of lighter than expected demand." "Today, the markets, as manic as they are, see demand strengthening off of the somewhat bullish [jobless] claims numbers," he added. Separately, natural gas moved up after the Energy Information Administration said U.S. natural-gas inventories rose gain in the week ended July 24, but the increase came in line with expectations. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in its first move under the Obama administration to increase transparency in futures trading, said Thursday it will report positions of West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures held by traders on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. The first publication of the data will be shown in the July 28 Commitments of Traders report, to be released on Friday. WTI crude is a type of light, sweet crude oil that's used by the Nymex as the benchmark commodity of the exchange's oil futures Big buildup in crude The EIA on Wednesday reported that crude inventories rose by 5.1 million barrels to reach 347.8 million barrels during the week ended July 24, much bigger than expectations. "Current prices are not completely reflective of underlying fundamentals," said Michael Fitzpatrick, analyst at MF Global. Total petroleum products supplied, an implied gauge of consumption, fell last week for the first week in five, pushing up total petroleum inventories -- including crude, gasoline and other products -- to a fresh 19-year high. See full story. Analysts led by Barbara Lambrecht at Commerzbank said they see "additional downside risk of a price correction to $60 a barrel in the coming days." "We feel the strength today is a great opportunity for institutional money to exit the energy market with bearish fundamentals, weak demand, and the prospect of new regulations coming soon," said Tariq Zahir, managing director at Tyche Capital Advisors. In economic news Thursday, U.S. data showed that first-time claims for state jobless benefits crept up in the latest week, but the trend of initial claims fell and fewer people were continuing to collect unemployment checks. See Economic Report. Also on in energy trading, August reformulated gasoline rose 13.61 cents, or 7.3%, to $1.9911 a gallon and August heating oil gained 9.72 cents, or 5.8%, to $1.7685 a gallon. September natural-gas futures rose 21.5 cent, or 6.1%, to $3.763 per million British thermal units. U.S. natural gas inventories rose 71 billion cubic feet in the week ended July 24, the EIA reported Thursday. Analysts at IHS Global Insight had expected a buildup of 72 billion cubic feet. At 3,023 billion cubic feet, stocks were 571 billion cubic feet higher than last year at this time and 478 billion cubic feet above the five-year average. The United States Oil Fund /quotes/comstock/13*!uso/quotes/nls/uso (USO 35.49, +2.02, +6.04%) rose 6.4% to $35.61, the United States Natural Gas Fund /quotes/comstock/13*!ung/quotes/nls/ung (UNG 13.06, +0.58, +4.65%) added 5.5% to $13.17 as energy stocks moved generally higher. Moming Zhou is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York. Polya Lesova is a New York-based reporter for MarketWatch.

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