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Crude futures top $58 a barrel

Monday, April 4, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

Oil prices briefly topped $58 a barrel today, rallying on longstanding fears about potential supply disruptions and growing demand even as actual inventories of crude are on the rise.

"I've been doing this for 22 years and I've never seen anything like this," said oil analyst Ken Miller at Purvin & Gertz in Houston. "I view this as a very unstable situation."

The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said a half-million-barrel-a-day increase to its output quota may be necessary to ease market tensions, though he reiterated the cartel's claim that the market is adequately supplied.

After touching a high of $58.28 in electronic trade, light, sweet crude for May delivery was up 8 cents to $57.35 a barrel in midday trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That topped the intraday high of $57.70 a barrel reached Friday, when the contract settled at a record $57.27.

Heating oil prices rose more less than a cent to $1.67 a gallon, while unleaded gasoline fell less than a cent to $1.727 a gallon.

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