By Claudia Assis and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — U.S. crude-oil futures rose as dollar weakness and heightened concerns about the Middle East and North Africa pushed prices above the psychologically key $100-a-barrel level.
Crude-oil futures for July delivery advanced 54 cents to $100.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil recovered some ground from the previous session, when weak U.S. economic data dragged the contract down 1.1%.
The U.S. dollar index DXY -0.55% , a measure of the greenback’s performance against a basket of six global currencies, traded at 75.159, compared with 75.598 late Thursday in North American trading.
Conflict in the Middle East and Libya “is back in market participants’ focus,” with Yemen on the brink of civil war and world leaders calling for Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi to step down, analysts at VTB Capital said in a note to clients. “The market cannot take another significant supply disruption.”
Although the region’s unrest “has fallen off newspapers’ headlines ... the risks for the oil market, however, are far from one-way,” analysts at J.P. Morgan said.
Ousting Gadhafi could bring about a “swift restoration” of some oil exports, but “much more significant future risks to oil supply” remain, they said. “In particular, we continue to watch the attempted clipping of [Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s] political power base with interest,” the J. P. Morgan analysts added.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Saudi Arabia is rallying Muslim nations across the Middle East and Asia to join an informal Arab alliance against Iran. That has some U.S. officials worried about the sectarian tensions gripping the Arab world, the Journal said.
Meanwhile, other energy products tracked oil’s gains ahead of a three-day weekend in the U.S.
July natural-gas futures rose 13 cents, or 2.9%, to $4.49 per million British thermal units.
Gasoline for July delivery added 2 cents, or 0.5%, to $3.06 a gallon.
