Crude rose to a four-week high after a surge in Chinese industrial output signaled that demand will accelerate, and a pipeline closure limited deliveries in the U.S. Futures advanced as much as 2.1 percent after a Sept. 11 report from China’s statistics bureau showed that production climbed 13.9 percent in August from a year before. Enbridge Energy Partners LP has no estimate for when its Line 6A pipeline, which supplies U.S. Midwest refineries with Canadian crude, will restart after closing on Sept. 9. “The Chinese economic data today increases the prospect for demand growth,” said Tom Bentz, a broker with BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. “The Enbridge pipeline is still shut, which is keeping the front end of the market firm.” Crude oil for October delivery climbed $1.10, or 1.4 percent, to $77.55 a barrel at 9:55 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $78.04, the highest intraday level since Aug. 11. Brent crude oil for October settlement rose 80 cents, or 1 percent, to $78.96 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Economists had anticipated a 13 percent annual rise in Chinese production, according to the median of 29 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey, after a 13.4 percent increase in July. “China’s economy is now in good shape, featuring fast growth, gradual structural improvement, rising employment and basic price stability,” China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, said today at the World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos meeting in China’s port city of Tianjin. European Growth Gross domestic product in the 16-nation euro region will likely increase 1.7 percent this year instead of the 0.9 percent projected at the depth of Europe’s fiscal crisis in May, the Brussels-based commission said in a report published today. China and the European Union accounted for 27 percent of global oil demand 2009, according to BP Plc, which publishes its BP Statistical Review of World Energy each June. Oil in New York rose 3 percent on Sept. 10, the most in six weeks, the day after the Enbridge pipeline shut. The company said it finished the “drain up” of the remaining oil and that it collected about 6,050 barrels out of the 6,100 leaked. The 670,000-barrel-a-day pipe can supply more than one-third of the oil imported from Canada by Midwestern refineries. Canada is the largest exporter of crude to the U.S., sending 2.2 million barrels a day in June, according to the Energy Department. Cushing Shipments Refiners in the region may ship oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, the Midwest storage hub, driving up the price of futures traded in New York. “Oil is up due to worries about what the pipeline shutdown will mean for supplies at Cushing,” Bentz said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted crude prices will rise to a range of $85 to $95 a barrel for the rest of this year as inventories decline. “We expect the supply-demand balance to continue to tighten in the second half of 2010 as continued global economic growth, albeit likely at a slower pace, continues to strengthen demand,” Goldman analysts led by David Greely said today in a weekly report.

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