Date November29 ,2011
Oil prices climbed above $98 per barrel on Europe hopes and weak dollar.
Oil prices climbed above $98 per barrel Monday after shoppers pumped up holiday retail sales in the US, and investors bet that Europe would find a last-minute solution to its financial crisis.
Benchmark crude rose $1.44 to end the day at $98.21 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price foreign oil including much imported by US refineries to make gasoline rose $2.26 to finish at $108.02 a barrel in London.
Benchmark oil has recovered much of the ground it lost since Nov. 16, when it hit $102.59 a barrel. Prices rebounded Monday following strong holiday sales in the U.S, where shoppers spent nearly $1 billion more on Black Friday than they did a year ago. The robust weekend sales are a promising sign that consumers are opening their wallets a little wider.
"The US is probably doing better than we gave it credit for," PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said. "Consumers are buying more, and that s going to get manufacturers to produce more products, and it ll take more energy to make and distribute those goods."
Meanwhile European leaders are considering new solutions to their credit problems, with little time to left to preserve the euro currency and perhaps head off a recession in the region. Among the ideas is a plan for eurozone countries with the best credit to pool their resources to assist the most indebted members of the 17-nation currency block.
Some analysts say the euro could collapse in days, unless action is taken.
Oil prices climbed along with a surge in world stock markets. Stock indexes in Italy, Germany and France rose more than 4 percent on Monday. In the US the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor s 500 and the Nasdaq all rose more than 2 percent.
In other energy trading, heating oil rose 4.26 cents to finish at $2.9699 per gallon, and gasoline futures rose 6.92 cents to finish at $2.5181 per gallon. Natural gas fell 17.8 cents, or 5 percent, to end the day at $3.3640 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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