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WORLD> America
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Oil prices steady; gas breaks $4 in 2 markets
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-19 21:51 VIENNA, Austria -- Oil prices rose Monday as a new report showed regular gas topped $4 a gallon for the first time in two US metropolitan areas. Investors brushed off news of increased production from Saudi Arabia Friday, the same day oil prices punched through another per-barrel trading record. The world's leading oil producer promised an additional 300,000 barrels of crude a day as President Bush wrapped up a trip to Saudi Arabia and talks with King Abdullah. That and a US announcement that it would temporarily stop filling government stockpiles have done little to change overall sentiment in the market. "There's a perception that demand is going to hold up pretty strongly this year," said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at Australia & New Zealand Bank in Melbourne. "This idea that the market just couldn't handle a hundred dollar oil has just gone out the window, so there's a parallel shift at where the market will trade." Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $1.28 to $127.57 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. In Friday trade, the June contract hit a trading record of $127.82 a barrel before settling at $126.29, up $2.17 from the previous close. That record was the eighth in the previous 10 sessions, and the first time oil had topped $127. The average price for regular gasoline in the US rose about 17 cents in the last two weeks, according to a national survey. The average price of self-serve regular gasoline on Friday was $3.79 a gallon and premium was $4.02, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide released Sunday. For the first time, the survey found average prices for regular gas surged above $4 a gallon in two metropolitan areas: Chicago and on Long Island in New York. The highest average price was in Chicago, at $4.07. |
