Oil rises to near $75 on global stock rally

SINGAPORE — Oil prices climbed to near $75 a barrel Thursday in Asia, extending big gains from the previous session as global stock markets rallied. Benchmark crude for August delivery was up 73 cents to $74.80 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.09 to settle at $74.07 on Wednesday. All major Asian stock markets advanced Thursday after the Dow Jones industrial average soared 2.8 percent, breaking a two-week sell-off. Oil traders often look to equities as a barometer of overall investor confidence. Energy prices "continued to hitch a ride on the tails of a wide swinging stock market," Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report. "The main trading focus in oil has shifted away from the euro and to the equities for the time being." Drops in US supplies of oil and its products also bolstered prices. Crude inventories plunged 7.3 million barrels last week the American Petroleum Institute said late Wednesday, more than a drop of 3.5 million barrels forecast in an analyst survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. Inventories of gasoline and distillates also fell, the API said. The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data later Thursday. In other Nymex trading in August contracts, heating oil rose 1.75 cents to $1.9962 a gallon, gasoline gained 1.87 cents to $2.0440 a gallon and natural gas jumped 3.9 cents to $4.604 per 1,000 cubic feet. Brent crude was up 61 cents to $74.12 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange. — AP