NEW YORK: Oil rose on Friday as concerns about gasoline supplies following a Canadian refinery outage outweighed data showing an unexpected rise in US job cuts.
A fire at Korea National Oil Corp.’s Newfoundland refinery damaged the plant’s 115,000 barrel per day facility’s Isomax unit, hitting gasoline production.
“There’s a lot of buying interest in gasoline futures right now, from all different types of players, after news of a refinery fire at the Come by Chance refinery in Canada,” said Joe Possillico, broker at MF Global in New York.
Gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded up more than 1 percent on the news, and helped push US crude prices up 44 cents to $83.10 a barrel by 12:46 p.m. EST (1746 GMT). London Brent crude gained 23 cents to $81.74 a barrel.
Weak demand in the United States and other developed economies have weighed on oil prices, with energy markets looking to wider economic data for signs of a turnaround.
Meanwhile, European stock markets closed slightly firmer on Friday. In London, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares edged up 0.14 percent to 5,534.24 points. In Paris, the CAC-40 added 0.51 percent to 4,045.14 points and in Frankfurt, the DAX put on 0.30 percent to 6,037.61 points.
Elsewhere in Europe, Amsterdam rose 0.41 percent, Brussels edged up 0.04 percent, Madrid slipped a marginal 0.03 percent and Milan was up 0.43 percent.
Earlier Friday in Asian trade, Tokyo closed up 1.09 percent in its best finish since October 2008 as investors hoped a weaker yen would help key exporters.
Shanghai inched up 0.10 percent in choppy trade while Hong Kong added 0.12 percent. Sydney rose 0.26 percent.
In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 23.66 points (0.22 percent) to 10,583.20 at 1645 GMT. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 6.57 points (0.29 percent) to 2,306.62, while the broad-market Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.89 points (0.17 percent) to 1,139.80.
Among stocks in focus, package delivery firm UPS powered 4.28 percent higher to $59.86 after raising fourth-quarter earnings guidance and saying it would cut 1,800 US jobs. On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold closed at $1,130.25 an ounce, unchanged from Thursday.