Oil prices leapt back towards $60 a barrel today as the hurricane season in the United States added to worries stocks will fail to build in time for peak fourth-quarter demand.
US oil prices gained $1.50 to $59.80, adding to gains late last week that halted a three-day fall from the all-time high of $60.95.
Brent crude on London's International Petroleum Exchange rose 48 cents to $58.42 a barrel, extending gains made yesterday when the US market was shut for Independence Day.
Traders were nervously monitoring the latest weather forecasts in the United States after the National Hurricane Centre in Miami issued a warning a tropical depression had strengthened into Tropical Storm Cindy, potentially threatening oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.
Earlier today a report from BP showed that world energy demand increased by the largest amount ever recorded last year with Global consumption rising by 4.3%, the largest annual percentage increase since 1984.
The BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2005, said the strongest increase was recorded in China, where demand leapt 15.1%, outstripping its economic growth of 9.5% last year.
Chinese energy demands have increased by 65% in the last three years, the report said.
Excluding China, world energy demand increased by 2.8%, the highest percentage increase since 1996, and an acceleration in demand compared to the two previous years, BP said.
Growth in demand was approximately three times higher in non-OECD countries, excluding China, than in OECD countries. The Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development groups the 30 most industrialised world economies. Demand in India, which is not an OECD member, surged by 7.2%.
