Bourse

Bourse

Oil prices rise

19 February 2010 08:36 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“APA-Economics. Crude oil prices rose on Thursday, brushing aside further evidence of demand weakness in the US, while base metals also moved higher, Financial Times reported.

Nymex March West Texas Intermediate rose $1.73 to $79.06 a barrel while ICE April Brent gained $1.51 to $77.78 a barrel.

The latest US weekly inventories data showed US crude stocks rose by 3.1m barrels last week, above the consensus forecast for an increase of 2.2m barrels. Imports of crude oil rose 206,000 barrels a day last week to average 8.55m b/d. The increase in imports swamped a small improvement in demand from refineries with refinery utilisation up 0.7 percentage points to 79.8 per cent.

Petrol inventories rose by 1.7m barrels, slightly above the consensus forecast for an increase of 1.5m barrels.

Nymex March RBOB unleaded gasoline traded slightly more than 2 cents higher at $2.0275 a gallon.