Oil hurtled back up to $56 a barrel on Thursday as Goldman Sachs bank, the biggest trader of energy derivatives, said prices could ultimately surge all the way above $100. The Goldman Sachs report strengthened gains driven by a fall in US gasoline stocks and fresh buying from investment funds as the dollar weakened. US light crude jumped $2.11, or 3.9 percent, to a high of $56.10 a barrel, within $1.50 of a $57.60 record high struck on March 17.
Benchmark Brent futures leapt $2.76 to $54.85, catching up with Wednesday's late recovery on the New York market, which this week closes an hour later than the London exchange.
Oil prices have climbed around 25 percent this year as signals that rapid demand growth in emerging economies China and India will strain world supply ignited heavy buying from big-money funds.
Goldman Sachs bank said in a research report on Thursday that oil markets have entered a "super-spike" period that could see prices rising as high as $105 a barrel.
"We believe oil markets may have entered the early stages of what we have referred to as a "super spike" period - a multi-year trading band of oil prices high enough to meaningfully reduce energy consumption and recreate a spare capacity cushion only after which will lower energy prices return," Goldman's analysts wrote.
Goldman's Global Investment Research note also raised the bank's 2005 and 2006 NYMEX crude price forecasts to $50 and $55 respectively, from $41 and $40.
These forecasts sit at the top of a table of predictions from 25 analysts, consultants and government bodies surveyed by Reuters.
US oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange have averaged $50.02 per barrel so far in 2005 up from a record $41.48 last year.
The US government reported on Wednesday that US gasoline supplies fell 2.9 million barrels to 214.4 million barrels last week, the fourth decline in a row ahead of summer when consumption peaks.
Gasoline demand has been running two percent higher than last year in the past four weeks, despite record prices at the pump, making the 6.3 percent inventory surplus versus last year's level less comforting than it would appear.
Also encouraging gains, the dollar - the currency of global oil trade - retreated further on Thursday from a five-month high against the yen.
A weaker dollar has encouraged funds to switch money from treasury markets into commodities, as well as insulating fuel consumption in non-dollar economies from the impact of higher crude prices.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries raised its formal output ceiling by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 27.5 million bpd in mid-March to pump up second-quarter global stocks, creating a cushion for anticipated year-end demand.
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