Oil prices gained today as market participants worried by the approach of the US summer driving and Atlantic hurricane seasons purchased oil contracts.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 11 cents to $71.43 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract on Thursday advanced $1.46 to settle at $71.32 a barrel.
The US market closes early today and will remain closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer driving season, when petrol demand peaks.
Market participants said the prospect of an active hurricane season - which starts June 1st - is another factor propelling crude oil prices.
Traders remember the damage caused by last year's hurricane season to key oil infrastructure in the US Gulf of Mexico, including Hurricane Katrina's severe disruption of the flow of oil and natural gas from the region, and the shutdown of onshore refineries and pipelines.
Petrol futures, which led the previous session's rally on news of refinery snags, dropped 0.24 cent Friday to $2.1020 a gallon, while heating oil prices fell fractionally to $1.994 a gallon.
Worries about summer supply shortages were reignited by reports of refinery snags, offsetting US government data that showed petrol inventories rose for a fourth consecutive week.
Natural gas prices rose 3.6 cents to $6.011 per 1,000 cubic feet despite data released by the US Energy Department showing domestic natural gas inventories swelling by 83 billion cubic feet in the past week to 2.16 trillion cubic feet, or 50 per cent above the five-year average for this time of year.
Natural gas futures are near a one-year low, and some analysts say that if inventories continue to grow at this pace, the country could run out of natural-gas storage capacity before winter, a prospect that should exert downward pressure on prices.
AP