Oil climbing fast in New York

29/05/2009

Crude oil trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange has built on the upward momentum developed yesterday (May 28th) during electronic trading.

By 05:24 Eastern Time, the July delivery crude contract had hit $65.85 (£40.84) a barrel, up 77 cents on yesterday's settle price.

The rise builds on strong gains witnessed after the announcement that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) would keep current production quotas in place, indicating that it has faith in a natural price recovery.

Heating oil prices also rose yesterday along with other distillates such as gasoline.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Opec's general secretary Abdalla el-Badri commented: "If we are able to keep this $60 to $70 price for the remainder of the year, it will be fine."

Meanwhile, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi described the global oil market as being "in good shape".

Prices have surged some 28 per cent since the start of the month, making this the biggest monthly gain seen since 1999.