NEW YORK (AFP) - World oil prices bounced back from a brief bout of profit taking as investors worried about thin supplies of winter heating oil in the United States.
New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, jumped 1.13 dollars to finish at 53.64 dollars a barrel, reversing the previous day's losses, after peaking at 53.95.
Investors had locked away fat profits Tuesday.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November rose 45 cents to 50.05 dollars Wednesday, spiking at 50.37 dollars.
"The momentum is incredible," Fimat USA market analyst Steve Bellino said.
"It's technical. They can't stop bidding this market up."
Traders were nervous on the eve of the release of weekly US government figures on the status of commercial petroleum inventories.
They wanted to see a solid increase in petroleum products, such as heating oil, diesel or gasoline, Bellino said.
"The way they are acting you would think there won't be any heating oil this winter," he said.
"This is one strong market."
Traders widely anticipated an increase in crude oil stocks of about 1.0 million to 1.5 million barrels; a fall in gasoline of about 1.0 million barrels; and a drop in distillates, including heating oil, of another 1.0 million barrels.
No specific news appeared to drive the late surge Wednesday, said Alaron Trading analyst Phil Flynn.
The market had sold off early in the day, taking a break after setting record highs on six successive trading days, he said.
After correcting, however, there was no follow-through in the selling, Flynn said.
"It is hard to find any reason to be short (of oil)," he said.
Flynn pointed to strike actions in Nigeria and Norway, a state threat to break up Russian oil giant Yukos, and estimates that hurricane-affected Gulf of Mexico output may not be fully restored until next year.
Meanwhile, energy demand estimates for China were rising for the rest of the year, Flynn said.
Disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico, along with temporary dips in Alaskan operations, cut US output 15 percent from last year to 4.85 million barrels per day in September, according to the private American Petroleum Institute.
It was the lowest monthly output rate in half a century.
The Gulf of Mexico region usually produces about 1.7 million barrels of oil per day.
But latest government figures showed 471,328 barrels per day were still out of production.
Based on preliminary information supplied by operators, 150,000 barrels per day may be back on line by the end of October, according to the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS).
But for the longer term, the agency said operators could only promise that about 96 percent of the normal daily Gulf of Mexico production "should be back on line within six months."