Market Commentary and Intraday News

Oil approaches $93 after US manufacturing improves

260 days ago

By PAMELA SAMPSON
AP Business Writer

(AP:BANGKOK) The price of oil approached $93 a barrel Tuesday in Asia after a report showed U.S. manufacturing rose in September for the first time in four months.

Benchmark oil for November delivery was up 21 cents to $92.69 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract closed up 29 cents at $92.48 in New York on Monday after a report showed U.S. manufacturing grew in September for the first time in four months.

Some analysts said the lift in oil prices following the Federal Reserve's announcement of a third round of bond buying on Sept. 13 was starting to wane.

Instead, the focus would likely "return to the deterioration in underlying economic and financial conditions that made the additional stimulus necessary in the first place," analysts at Capital Economics said in an email commentary.

Last month, the Fed announced another round of bond buying, known as quantitative easing, and said it would consider providing additional support to the U.S. economy until the labor market showed substantial improvement.

A glimpse of the U.S. jobs picture will come Friday, when the Labor Department releases employment data for September.

Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of oil, was down 22 cents to $111.97 on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading:

_ Natural gas rose 5.1 cents to $3.531 per 1,000 cubic feet.

_ Heating oil fell 0.3 cent to $3.139 per gallon.

_ Wholesale gasoline fell 0.1 cent to $2.911 per gallon.

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