By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Benchmark U.S. crude-oil futures rose in electronic trade Friday amid hopes for a last-minute deal on the fiscal cliff, though larger-than-expected crude inventories capped gains.
Crude oil for February delivery CLG3 +0.50% rose 44 cents, or 0.5%, to $91.31 a barrel during Asian trading hours after the contract settled 0.1% lower in choppy Thursday trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Thursday’s mild loss for oil came after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned the U.S. “looks like” it will go off the fiscal cliff of heavy tax hikes and spending cuts at the start of the year. Read: Crude oil slips on sour fiscal-cliff sentiment
After the Nymex session closed, however, White House and congressional officials said that the president and legislative leaders from both parties would meet Friday to attempt a last-minute deal.
Weighing on crude-oil prices, meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute said late Thursday that U.S. crude-oil supplies fell 1.2 million barrels during the week ended Dec. 21, less than the 2 million expected on average by analysts polled in a Platts survey. Read: Oil supplies down 1.2 mln barrels last week: API.
Attention now turns to supply data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which are seen as more definitive.
Among other energy futures, gasoline for January delivery RBF3 +0.52% added a penny, or 0.5%, to trade at $2.83 a gallon, while January heating oil HOF3 +0.30% also rose a cent to sit at $3.08 a gallon. Both contracts were due to expire Monday.
March natural gas NGH13 -0.55% slipped 0.2% to $3.42 per million British thermal units.
Michael Kitchen is Asia editor for MarketWatch and is based in Los Angeles.
