BLBG:Crude rebounds further on reserve-release denial
By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil prices edged higher during East Asian hours Friday, boosted by the U.S. dollar’s weakness, as crude added to its bounce from Thursday’s lows after an Obama administration official denied an agreement with the U.K. to release strategic oil reserves.
April futures for light, sweet crude-oil CLJ2 +0.42% rose 46 cents, or 0.4%, to $105.57 a barrel in electronic trading. In a regular New York Mercantile Exchange trading session on Thursday, the front-month contract fell 32 cents, but ended well off the day’s $103.78 low.
At a briefing Thursday, a White House spokesman said that President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron discussed energy issues, but hadn’t reached any agreement on crude reserves.
The remarks followed a Reuters report that the two nations had discussed the possibility of releasing strategic oil stocks to ease the burden from rising crude and gasoline prices.
The ICE U.S. dollar index DXY -0.07% weakened a little during Asian trading Friday, supporting the increase in crude-oil prices.
Among other energy products, April futures for heating oil HOJ2 +0.13% rose 0.1% to $3.23 per gallon, while prices of natural gas for delivery the same month NGJ12 -0.61% fell 1% to $2.26 per million British thermal units.
May gasoline futures RBK2 -0.01% climbed 0.1% to $3.29 per gallon.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
