NEW YORK |
(Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday as worries persisted that upheaval in Egypt could spread across the Middle East and North Africa, source of a third of the world's supply of crude.
In earlier trade, prices had lost some steam after the dollar rebounded as nervous investors sought a safe haven and as data showed U.S. crude stockpiles rose for a third straight week.
"While the oil market wants to move lower on the bearish (inventory) data, it can't break away from worries about Egypt," said Phil Flynn, analyst at PFGBest Research in Chicago.
"The latest pictures of Egyptian demonstrations becoming violent have added to those worries," Flynn said.
U.S. March crude settled 9 cents higher at $90.86, bouncing off a session low of $90.10.
ICE Brent crude for March delivery ended up 60 cents at $102.34 a barrel. In earlier trade it touched $102.36, the highest for a front-month contract since September 2008.
Brent's premium against the U.S. crude benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, remained wide at more than $11 a barrel, gaining from $10.97 at the close on Tuesday.
Part of Brent's strength stemmed from rising U.S. stocks at the key storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for oil futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Stockpiles at the hub rose 667,000 barrels last week to a record 38.33 million barrels, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed. <EIA/S>
That was a portion of the total 2.6-million-barrel increase last week in U.S. crude inventories, the third straight week that supplies have risen.
A massive winter storm, meanwhile, brought parts of the U.S. Midwest to a standstill and delivered another wintry blow to the Northeast, the biggest market for heating oil.
The U.S. March heating oil contract settled 2.37 cents higher at $2.7807 a gallon, the highest for a front-month heating contract since October 2008.
Heating oil inventories fell 2.8 million barrels last week, to 39.2 million barrels, dropping for the eighth week in a row, the EIA reported.
Moving in the opposite direction, U.S. March gasoline fell 2.09 cents to $2.4985 a gallon, dropping from a 28-month closing high on Tuesday.
Data showed gasoline inventories jumped a whopping 6.2 million barrels last week to 236.2 million barrels, the highest level since March 1993.
