Oil headed for a third weekly gain as investors bet President Barack Obama’s job-creation plan will support demand for fuel and as Tropical Storm Nate was forecast to become a hurricane, threatening supplies in the world’s biggest crude-consumer. Futures climbed as much as 0.5 percent, erasing a decline of 0.8 percent, after Obama called on Congress to pass a proposal that would inject $447 billion into the economy. Prices slid yesterday after Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the nation’s recovery is fragile. Energy companies including BP Plc began evacuating platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, home to 27 percent of U.S. oil output. The jobs package is “higher than market expectations,” Mark Pervan, head of commodity research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne, said in a note today. “This should trigger risk-on sentiment today.” Crude for October delivery gained as much as 45 cents to $89.50 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $89.48 at 12:41 p.m. Sydney time. Prices are 3.5 percent higher this week and up 21 percent the past year. Brent oil for October settlement increased as much as 45 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $115 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $25.44 to U.S. futures, compared with the record settlement of $26.87 on Sept. 6. Nate, Stockpiles Tropical Storm Nate’s top winds are 70 miles (113 kilometers) per hour, just under the threshold of 74 mph needed to be a hurricane, according to an advisory from the U.S. National Hurricane Center before 11 p.m. East Coast time yesterday. The storm has been lashing Petroleos Mexicanos rigs in the Bay of Campeche and its final track is still in question. BP and Apache Corp. said they were beginning evacuations of some workers in the Gulf because of Nate. The BP decision affects non-essential workers at the Atlantis, Holstein and Mad Dog platforms, according to a message on a telephone hotline. Apache’s removal of non-essential workers from facilities in the far western Gulf hasn’t affected production, Bill Mintz, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail. U.S. crude supplies fell 3.96 million barrels to 353.1 million last week as Tropical Storm Lee shut platforms, a report from the Energy Department showed yesterday. They were forecast to drop 2 million barrels, according to the median estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Gasoline stockpiles climbed 199,000 barrels, compared with a median forecast for a drop of 1.4 million barrels. Global Growth Oil in New York slipped yesterday after Bernanke said in a speech that Fed policy makers will discuss tools to boost the economic recovery at their next meeting this month. U.S. equities fell after he failed to give specific plans. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 1.1 percent at the 4 p.m. close in New York. Asian stocks swung between gains and losses, today, with the regional benchmark index headed for its first weekly loss in three weeks. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut growth forecasts yesterday for the U.S. and Japan, the largest and third-largest oil-consuming countries. China is the second-biggest user of crude. To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in Singapore at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net

Source