OIL rose above US$94 a barrel as the US government raised its forecast for the price of oil this year.
Benchmark oil for May delivery gained 84 cents to finish at US$94.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil is up US$1.50 the past two days after declining by US$4.53, or 4.7 percent, last week.
The Energy Department said in its monthly outlook on energy markets that oil should average US$94 a barrel in 2013. The outlook is up US$2 a barrel from the forecast issued a month ago.
Oil also got a boost from solid gains in US stocks and a drop in the dollar. The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 60 points. And the euro rose to US$1.3085 against the dollar, compared with US$1.3007 Monday. A weaker dollar makes crude less expensive and more attractive to traders using other currencies.
US drivers received some encouraging news yesterday. The Energy Department predicted that the average price for a gallon (3.8 liters) of gas between April and September, when Americans tend to drive the most, will be US$3.63, down 6 cents from a year earlier.
Many analysts don't expect spring prices to surge because refineries are already coming back online after winter maintenance, which will boost gas supplies.
Brent crude, which sets the price of oil used by many US refineries to make gasoline, yesterday rose US$1.38 to end at US$106.15 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Oil investors are waiting for fresh information on US stockpiles of crude and refined products. Data for the week ending April 5 is expected to show an increase of 1.4 million barrels in crude oil stockpiles and a draw of 1.8 million barrels in gasoline stocks, according to a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration releases its report Wednesday morning.
In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:
- Wholesale gasoline rose 3 cents to finish at US$2.94 per gallon.
- Natural gas fell 7 cents to end at US$4.02 per 1,000 cubic feet.
- Heating oil rose 1 cent to finish at US$2.96 per gallon.
