Commodity Daily News

Oil Breaks $52 a Barrel

Crude Oil prices rose nearly 5.8% on Thursday, fueled by a rally on Wall Street and data showing that the number of workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week. Adding support to Crude, the UK consultancy Oil Movements said on Thursday that Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production will fall 280,000 barrels per day (BPD) in the four weeks ending April 25th. OPEC has agreed to slash 4.2 million BPD of crude output since September to counter falling prices and match slumping world demand.

Oil prices had also climbed Wednesday on weekly Energy Information Administration data showing a smaller-than-expected suppl in U.S. crude inventories and a big slump in distillate stocks. The market reacted violently as optimism in equity markets about the U.S. economy carried over into Crude. The U.S. Economic data that showed crude-oil supplies increased 1.65 million barrels to 361.1 million last week, the highest since July 1993.