Crude oil futures jumped past $50 a barrel on Thursday, 26 March 2015 and headed for their fifth straight daily gain as Saudi Arabian airstrikes in Yemen raised fresh concerns over potential disruptions to crude supplies.
May crude climbed 98 cents, or 2%, to $50.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It hit an intraday high of $52.48 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia and its allies' air strikes against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have produced fresh geopolitical tension. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two major Middle East powers, are now in a stare-down. Crude oil prices rallied sharply to a two-week high above $52.00 a barrel on the news, while safe-haven gold also posted decent gains.
Reports overnight said China has moved to allow more companies to import gold into China, which will effectively reduce the premium China's domestic gold-buyers have had to pay over the world price. The move by Chinese authorities should give a modest boost to gold demand coming from China. The World Gold Council said Chinese demand for imported gold is likely to rise by 11% this year.
Economic data was limited to weekly initial claims, which declined to 282,000 from last week's unrevised 291,000 while the consensus expected a reading of 290,000. After three weeks above 300,000, the 4-week moving average for initial claims has dropped below that threshold, suggesting the claims level is reestablishing a trend below 300,000.
Among other energy products, prices for petroleum products climbed, too. April gasoline traded at $1.862 a gallon, up 2.6 cents, or 1.4%, while April heating oil added 4.1 cents, or 2.4%, to $1.769 a gallon.
April natural gas turned lower to trade at $2.666 per million British thermal units, down 5.7 cents, or 2.1%. The EIA reported Thursday an increase of 12 billion cubic feet in last week's natural-gas supplies. Market had forecast a rise of 12 to 16 billion cubic feet.