Crude futures briefly jumped more than $2 a barrel Tuesday after the Energy Department raised its oil-price forecast by $6 a barrel and as traders remained worried that summer storms in the Gulf of Mexico could hurt U.S. petroleum inventories.
The Energy Department said Tuesday that it expects oil prices to average $59 a barrel through September, up from its estimate of $53 a barrel a month ago.
After briefly surging past $61 a barrel, light sweet crude for August delivery traded at $60.70 a barrel, an increase of $1.78 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil futures soared 6.92 cents to $1.751 a gallon, while gasoline futures rose 4.79 cents to $1.78 a gallon.
