Oil Rises Above $85 per Barrel

Tomahawk, WI 10/14/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Oil prices rose above $85 a barrel Friday as investors hoped Europe was moving toward a solution to its debt crisis and looked to a slew of U.S. economic indicators due later in the day for signs of strength in the world's largest economy.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for November delivery was up $1.10 at $85.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.34 to settle at $84.23 in New York on Thursday.

In London, Brent crude was up $1.48 at $112.59 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Crude has wandered in the mid-$80s most of this week after jumping from $75 last week, when optimism grew that Europe will soon unveil a plan to contain its debt crisis. Traders will be closely watching the latest data about U.S. retail sales, consumer sentiment and business inventories scheduled to be released later Friday for clues about crude demand.

Developments in the European debt crisis are seen as a key factor driving oil prices.

On Thursday, "Slovakia became the last country of the 17-member eurozone to ratify current plans to reinforce" the bailout fund," said analysts at JBC Energy in Vienna, calling it "a confidence-bolstering measure which should have supported crude prices."

Finance leaders from the world's leading economies, the Group of 20, will be meeting Friday and Saturday in Paris. On the agenda are the European debt crisis and ways to spark global economic growth.

News this week has been mostly negative for the oil market. On Thursday, the U.S. Energy Department said that oil and natural gas supplies grew unexpectedly last week, suggesting demand remains sluggish. Earlier this week the International Energy Agency, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the U.S. Energy Information Administration all dropped forecasts for oil demand in 2012, assuming a slowdown in global economic growth.

"We are now in the Great Cessation," said a report U.S. energy consultancy Cameron Hanover. "It is not a recession and it is not a recovery. It is a realization that the economy is treading water."

In other Nymex trading, heating oil rose 4.79 cents at $3.0193 per gallon and gasoline futures gained 2.9 cents to $2.7865 per gallon. Natural gas advanced 1.6 cents to $3.547 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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