Oil prices jumped in US trading to beyond $US75 a barrel on Friday night, our time, after US Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke attempted to soothe concern about America’s slowing growth rate.
October Nymex jumped $US1.81 to $US75.17 a barrel, marking the third straight session of gains.
In London, the October Brent North Sea contract rose just 1.63 cents to $US76.65 per barrel.
In his speech, Bernanke said the sluggish pace of the US economic recovery and employment was weaker than expected by the Federal Reserve.
But he maintained that prospects for a pick-up in 2011 growth appeared to "remain in place" despite a sharp cutback in the pace of second quarter economic expansion.
He further said the Federal Reserve will take more "unconventional" steps to boost growth if the economic outlook "deteriorated significantly".
Second quarter growth was cut to an annual rate of 1.6% in the second of three estimates released before Mr Bernanke’s speech.
That’s down from the 3.7% annual rate in first quarter, or a quarter on quarter rate of 0.4% vs. 0.9%, and 5.6% in the December quarter of 2009.
It was also down on the first estimate of 2.4% annual (0.6% quarter on quarter).
Traders reported that the price also rise because of short covering ahead of the weekend with three tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean also helping lift crude oil futures that had dropped to an 11-week low under $US71 a barrel intraday on Wednesday.
October crude rose $US1.71, or 2.33% higher for the week, the first rise in three weeks.
The US dollar rose against the yen and the Swiss franc, but the greenback fell against the euro.
The reality in the US is that oil stockpiles are high because demand remains soft for industrial fuels and petrol.
Meanwhile gold ended a touch higher on Friday to be up 0.7% over the week.
However silver rose 5.8% as it seemed to attract more attention from traders for most the week.
Comex December gold added 20 cents to end at $US1,237.90 an ounce on New York.
So far this month, gold is up 5%, reversing July’s 5% loss.
Silver touched a multi-month high on Friday, but then eased on profit taking after the speech by Mr Bernanke.
September silver added 6 cents to $US19.04 an ounce.
That was after hitting an intraday high of $US19.34 an ounce earlier.
Silver is also up 5.8%n for August so far, compared with the 3.8% loss in July.
September copper kept gains intact, adding 6 cents, or 1.8%, to $US3.36 a pound.
That was copper’s highest close in three weeks.
Over the week, copper rose 2%.
Among the softs, wheat rose for a second day on Friday, but still ended the week lower for its third weekly drop in a row.
The rise followed a small revision to global wheat harvests by the International Grains Council.
The Council said world output will total 644 million tonnes in the marketing year that ends in June, 2011.
That’s 1.1% lower than the previous estimate.
December wheat futures rose 6.5 cents, or 0.9%, to close at $US6.95 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Wheat lost 2.4% last week but is still up 45% since the end of June because of the bad drought in Russia.
