Oil prices surge once again

27 March 2008

In news which may be of interest to home heating oil users, oil prices have once again surged forward.

Despite dampening after US interest rate cuts at the start of the week, oil prices rose by four dollars overnight to edge towards $106 (£52.56) a barrel.

However, this not as high as last week's hikes which recorded soaring values pushing towards a record high of nearly $112.

Yet this week, values had hovered around $100 a barrel before last night's price hike.

Mark Pervan, a commodity strategist at ANZ Bank, explained to the Associated Press that stock levels and demand were responsible for the surge.

He remarked: "[Gasoline] stock levels are at a higher than normal level, so they've pulled back on production and this is why we've seen a fairly sharp drop in [refinery] utilisation rates."

US stock level falls had been "larger than expected", he added.

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