US oil price rises on upbeat consumer data

U.S. oil price climbed Friday as data showed consumer confidence of the United States rose in April. On the economic front, U.S. consumer sentiment rose to 82.6 in April, the highest in nine months, according to the preliminary reading of a survey by Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan. Traders believed that the encouraging consumer sentiment data signals that strong gasoline demand will come. The U.S. Producer Price Index jumped 0.5 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, said the Labor Department Friday, indicating some buildup of inflation in the country. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Friday trimmed its 2014 forecast of global demand growth to 1.3 million barrels/day (mb/d), reflecting downward adjustments to the projection of Russian demand. But the absolute demand estimate remained roughly unchanged from March, at 92.7 mb/d, the monthly IEA report said. Global supplies plunged 1.2 mb/d during March to 91.75 mb/d, led by steeply lower OPEC output in the month, but remained 1.1 mb/ d higher than a year earlier, as non-OPEC growth of 1.98 mb/d more than offset a nearly 1 mb/d drop in OPEC crude. IEA forecast that global refinery crude demand is set to drop by 2 mb/d from February through April on planned maintenance in the Atlantic basin and the Pacific. Light, sweet crude for May delivery moved up 34 cents to settle at 103.74 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for May delivery lost 13 cents to close at 107.33 dollars a barrel.