Oil prices rise above $82

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, was up 42 cents to 81.92 dollars a barrel after climbing slightly above 82 dollars.

London’s Brent North Sea crude for April rose 51 cents to 80.40 dollars a barrel.

“Positive news came from the economic front with reports of a lower-than-expected number of job cuts,” analysts at the JBC Energy Research Centre said in a note to clients.

The US Labor Department reported Friday the world’s biggest economy shed fewer jobs than expected in February and the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent despite severe winter storms, suggesting a brighter outlook.

Most economists had expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in January.

Non-farm payrolls fell by 36,000, surprising most analysts who projected 67,000 job losses because of massive snow storms that crippled the country’s northeastern region.

“The unemployment rate last Friday in the US was positive, so the market is optimistic and investors are more willing to take risks,” said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager at Astmax asset management in Tokyo.

He added that the market was likely to see an upward trend in oil prices in the short term, supported by upbeat investor sentiment about energy demand on signs the US economic recovery may be gathering pace.

Elsewhere on Monday, oil traders digested weekend comments from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who said that his key crude-producing nation would maintain its moderate policies which helped limit the damage of the global financial crisis.

“The kingdom has continued to be moderate in its approach to the global oil situation,” Abdullah said in his annual address to the Shura Council, the country’s consultative assembly.

The statement from the Saudi king comes amid rising concern that US-led sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme could disrupt the global oil markets.

With Saudi production hovering at around nine million barrels a day, Saudi Arabia is by far the OPEC cartel’s largest oil supplier and the key swing producer, adding or reducing output to moderate sharp swings in the market.

But when the financial crisis broke out, prices shot up to nearly 150 dollars a barrel in July 2008 before plummeting to below 40 dollars a barrel in January 2009.