Oil rebounds on Nigeria threat, supply concerns Wednesday May 28, 4:39 pm ET By John Wilen, AP Business Writer Oil rebounds from early losses as Nigeria threat stokes supply concerns; gas prices rise
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil futures rose back above $131 Wednesday, recovering from early losses as threats against Nigerian oil facilities led investors to at least temporarily set aside concerns about falling U.S. gas demand.
ADVERTISEMENT At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rose to a new record over $3.94 a gallon.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose $2.18 to settle at $131.03 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after spending the morning swinging between gains and losses. At its lows, oil was down nearly $3 a barrel, compounding a $3.34 drop in crude on Tuesday. It passed $135 for the first time last Thursday.
Although prices rebounded sharply Wednesday, investors are still contending with a growing belief that U.S. demand for gas is falling in response to prices that already average more than $4 in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The national average price of a gallon of regular gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to a new record of $3.944, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
Gas prices are likely to keep rising as long as crude prices don't collapse, analysts said. And that means prices will soon breach the psychologically important $4 level on a national basis.
"I can't see anything to stop it from going there," said Chip Hodge, energy portfolio manager at John Hancock Financial Securities in Boston.
Crude prices received a fresh boost from word that Nigerian rebel group The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened attacks on oil installations beginning Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of President Umaru Yar'Adua's inauguration. A weekend attack by the group on an oil facility cut about 130,000 barrels of the nation's oil production, said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn., in a research note. News of disruptions in Nigeria, a major U.S. supplier, have helped push oil prices higher over the past year.
Oil investors also received mixed signals from the dollar, which rose against the euro, but fell against the Japanese yen and British pound. When the dollar declines, investors tend to buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation. But a stronger dollar makes oil more expensive to investors dealing in other currencies.
Many analysts believe the dollar's protracted decline has attracted an unprecedented level of speculative investing to the oil market, resulting in a doubling of oil prices in one year. When prices dip -- as they did Tuesday and early Wednesday morning -- many investors see a buying opportunity, rather than a weak market. The momentum generated by that buying can drive prices even higher.
Still, two new polls and revised Energy Department data added to the market's concerns that high prices are cutting American consumers' appetite for gasoline. Demand for gasoline fell 5.5 percent last week compared to the same week last year, according to the weekly MasterCard SpendingPulse survey. On average, demand over the past four weeks is off 6.3 percent compared to the same period last year, the survey found.
A separate CreditCards.com survey of about 1,000 people found that more than half have cut back on their driving due to high fuel prices. And the Energy Department numbers show demand for gasoline fell 1.1 percent in March from a year ago, according to Olivier Jakob, an analyst with Petromatrix Gmbh in Switzerland; that's a change from preliminary data that suggested demand was roughly flat.
The findings jell with recent data from the Energy Department and Federal Highway Administration showing that American consumers are cutting back on driving, and with an AAA survey released before Memorial Day that found fewer people planned to drive over the long holiday weekend.
Data on Memorial Day weekend demand won't be available until next week.
Diesel also rose to a new record Wednesday, adding a cent to average $4.778 nationally, AAA and the Oil Price Information Service said. High diesel prices are pushing the prices of consumer goods and food higher. In other Nymex trading, June gasoline futures rose 6.46 cents to settle at a record $3.4476 a gallon after earlier rising to a trading record of $3.458 a gallon. June heating oil futures rose 2.51 cents to settle at $3.8243 a gallon, and June natural gas futures rose 11.5 cents to settle at $11.916 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, July Brent crude futures rose $2.62 to settle at $130.93 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Associated Press Writer Edward Harris in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report. |