LONDON - World oil prices rebounded on Thursday after strong falls over the past two days and a fatal blast at BP's biggest oil refinery in the United States revived fears over gasoline supplies, dealers said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, rose by 60 cents to 54.41 dollars a barrel in electronic dealing.
It had fallen by 3.65 dollars over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, due to massive speculative selling and a sharp rise in US crude inventories.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in May gained 78 cents to 53.82 dollars a barrel Thursday.
Crude oil prices "spiked higher in early trade this morning on news of a powerful explosion ripping through a giant BP oil refinery in Texas", analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.
"The explosion at the 470,000 barrels-per-day refinery killed at least 14 people and injured over 100, damaging an isomerisation unit, which upgrades the quality of gasoline, however other operations were not affected."
The strong explosion, which injured also more than 70 people, rocked BP's sprawling coastal plant in Texas City, 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Houston, Texas.
The site, consisting of 30 refinery units and large storage tanks, produces 30 percent of BP's North American oil and 3.0 percent of the entire US supply. The refinery also produces vast quantities of gasoline.
BP said that the site pumped out enough gasoline to fill up a car every seven seconds.
The blast worried traders because most US refineries were running at full capacity.
Gasoline, or petrol, is in strong demand ahead of the so-called "driving season" when many Americans take to the open roads for their summer vacations.
Prices rose despite a sharp drop in crude stockpiles from the US Department of Energy (DoE), revealed the day before.
Crude oil supplies were up 4.1 million barrels to 309.3 million, the DoE said.
The DoE said gasoline supplies fell by 4.1 million barrels to 217.3 million in the week to March 18, while the private American Petroleum Institute said its survey also showed a fall of 4.71 million barrels to 214.33 million.
Despite the drawdown -- expected as US refiners shift to cope with summer driving demand -- gasoline stockpiles remained above normal for this time of year, it added.
"The figures showed that crude oil supplies are ample and with gasoline stocks still at multi-year highs, despite the fall, the picture is of a well supplied market place," Sucden analysts noted.
Meanwhile, traders were keeping an eye on key producer Nigeria. The government government was to meet with oil firms and workers unions to try and avert a planned warning strike that may disrupt exports of crude oil from the west African giant.
Nigeria is the world's ninth-biggest oil producer and exports around 2.5 million barrels per day.
03/24/2005 12:33 GMT