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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
NEW YORK - Oil prices closed slightly higher in New York Friday despite weak demand in the United States, lifted by a rebound of London's Brent amid severe cold weather in Europe.
New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light sweet crude for March, added 30 cents to finish the session at $98.71 a barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in March added 97 cents to settle at $117.20 a barrel.
The US Department of Energy said Wednesday that inventories of American crude, gasoline and distillates all rose last week.
Energy demand remained weak in the country: the world's biggest oil consumer used on average 18.1 million barrels per day in the past four weeks, or 4.8 percent the year-ago level.
But the growing spread between WTI and Brent prices pulled the New York futures contract higher, said Tom Bentz at BP Paribas.
"Brent is on the upside because of the cold weather in Europe... and we don't have such winter here," Bentz said.
In addition, traders remained focused on developments in the Greek debt crisis -- "whether they'll do the deal or not" -- and on Iran, where lawmakers on Wednesday went into a near month-long recess without taking any action on a bill to impose a pre-emptive oil embargo on European Union countries.
Instead they backed unspecified "retaliatory measures" prepared by the oil and trade ministries, and demanded that "Iran's European customers be replaced with customers from other countries."
Iran is the second-biggest producer in OPEC, behind Saudi Arabia. Nearly 20 percent of the oil exports go to European Union countries, mainly Italy, Spain and Greece. Most of the rest goes to Asia, principally China, India, Japan and South Korea.
Western countries have stepped up embargo pressures and sanctions on Iran, alleging it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran denies that, insisting its atomic program is for civilian purposes only.
