NEW YORK (AP) — Oil is rising to new 30-month highs as the dollar declines versus other major currencies and an industry survey suggests that crude supplies unexpectedly fell last week.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate gained 54 cents at $108.76 per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It jumped as high as $109.15 earlier in the day — the highest since September 2008. Retail gasoline prices climbed above $3.71 per gallon. Pump prices are more than $4 per gallon in California, Hawaii and Alaska.
Oil prices are rising after the American Petroleum Institute reported that U.S. crude supplies fell by 2.8 million barrels last week. Analysts expected an increase of 1.3 million barrels.
The dollar, which tends to move in the opposite direction from oil, lost ground against foreign currencies.
