By Claudia Assis and Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Oil futures rose on Thursday as hope persisted officials would unveil additional stimulus measures at the conclusion of a two-day interest-rate meeting at the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Crude for October delivery CLV2 +1.32% gained $1.42, or 1.5%, to $98.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Crude-oil futures ended lower Wednesday, breaking a five-session winning streak after a government update showed a surprise increase in oil inventories. Read more on Wednesday's oil market action.
Gains ahead of Wednesday’s trading session were made amid strengthening expectations that the Fed will wrap up its two-day interest-rate meeting on Thursday with an announcement that it will start another large-scale bond-buying program.
Energy traders were also keeping an eye on developments in the Middle East after the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed in Benghazi on Tuesday. Protesters on Thursday stormed the grounds of the U.S. embassy in Yemen. Read: Protesters attack U.S. embassy in Yemen .
“Although this doesn’t present an immediate threat to oil production, connecting the dots from civil unrest to geopolitical tension and potential escalating violence is adding a bit of a risk premium into prices today,” said Matt Smith, an analyst with Summit Energy, in a note to clients.
The main focus of the oil market remains the Fed, he added.
Other energy futures were mixed.
Natural gas for October delivery NGV12 -1.31% was off 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $2.99 per million British thermal units. The Energy Information Administration is scheduled to report on natural-gas inventories later Thursday. Analysts polled by Platts expect the report to show an increase between 25 billion cubic feet and 29 bcf for the week ended Sept. 7.
A rise within that range would be smaller than the 80-bcf addition in the same week in 2011 and the five-year-average injection of 72 bcf.
October gasoline futures RBV2 -0.61% eased less than 1 cent, or 0.1%, to $2.99 a gallon while heating oil for the same month HOV2 +0.32% gained 2 cents, or 0.6%, to $3.23 a gallon.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
Barbara Kollmeyer is an editor for MarketWatch in Madrid. Sarah Turner in Sydney contributed to this report.
