Oil Prices | featured news

An unexpected jump in claims for unemployment benefits and plummeting oil prices are driving stocks lower in early trading Thursday.

Oil consumption rose by its fastest rate since 2004 last year, according to the latest statistics from BP. The news came as members of the Opec oil cartel failed to agree on increasing oil production as a way of lowering prices. Analysts had expected the Vienna meeting to raise output. As a result, oil prices jumped again on fears of limited supply. The value of a barrel of Brent crude rose back above $118 a barrel.

The U.S. economy is on increasingly unsteady footing, hurt by stubbornly high unemployment and volatile oil prices, the head of General Motors Co told reporters on Tuesday.

Congress should take steps to limit speculation in oil markets, which has boosted prices as much as 30 percent, a new report from the Democratic staff of a House of Representatives oversight committee said on Monday.

With gasoline prices hovering at $4 a gallon nationally, many Americans are making tough choices: scaling back summer vacations, driving less or ditching the car altogether. Some seniors are choosing a tank of gas over their prescriptions....

Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil admitted last week that the price of oil–based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range. The reason it’s above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds.

Oil prices tumbled nearly 5 percent on Wednesday, as easing supply concerns sent gasoline into a tailspin that briefly forced trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to stop.

Oil prices plummeted by almost 9 percent on Thursday as traders worried that American drivers were beginning to balk at the price of gasoline.

Chevron says first-quarter earnings rose 36 percent. The company received higher prices for the oil it produced, and also made more money from refining oil.

Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell Plc reported big jumps in first quarter earnings and beat forecasts, thanks to high oil prices and healthy refining margins.