Commodities: Oil prices reach another record high
Crude oil jumped to over $112 a barrel, a new record level, after drop in weekly crude inventories.
US light crude for May finally settled up $2.37 at $110.87 a barrel.
A report by the Energy Information Administration showed stockpiles of crude fell to 316m barrels in the week ended 4 April. Most analysts had pencilled in an increase of around 2.7m barrels.
The government data showed the falling crude inventories came from a drop in imports. US oil imports came in at an average of around 8.9m barrels a day last week, down nearly 1.4m barrels a day from the week before, the EIA said.
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The report also showed US gasoline supplies fell 3.4m barrels last week and distillate supplies, which include heating oil and diesel, fell 3.7m barrels.
However a separate report by the American Petroleum Institute said US crude inventories rose by 6m barrels in the week ended 4 April to 315.5m barrels.
Among precious metals gold for June delivery jumped $19.50 to finish at $937.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange as oil rallied to an all time high. Gold also benefited from a weaker dollar.
Other metals also gained with May silver futures up 49 cents at $18.20 an ounce and July platinum futures up $15 at $2,044.60 an ounce. June palladium rose $5.80 at $463.20 an ounce.
