Investing.com - Crude oil futures moved marginally higher in U.S. trade Friday, following worse than expected U.S. gross domestic product numbers and the postponement of a monetary policy decision from the Federal Reserve Bank.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for October delivery traded at USD84.98 a barrel during afternoon U.S. trade, rising 0.05%, after hitting a daily low of USD83.03.
Earlier Friday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking from the central bank’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, said although the bank had the capacity to stimulate U.S. economic growth, further discussion was necessary to weigh the benefits of an additional round of quantitative easing.
Also Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that U.S. gross domestic product rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1% in the second quarter. That followed a 1.3% rise the previous three-month period but was below market expectations for a 1.1% gain for the April to June quarter.
Oil markets were closely monitoring Hurricane Irene, the first major storm of the season to threaten the U.S. mainland, which was on a path to make landfall on the eastern seaboard over the weekend.
Irene, a Category 3 storm, pummeled the Bahamas Thursday and was expected to hit North Carolina before heading north to several key ports in the U.S. Northeast including New York Harbor.
The oil delivery station in New York connects to pipelines and power networks that serve more than 100 million Americans.
Meanwhile, rebel forces in Libya had not yet located long-time leader Moammar Gadhafi and a resumption of the country’s oil production remained in limbo.
The Libyan rebel government had said it was hopeful that oil exports could restart in two or three months and reach full production after a year.
A falling U.S. dollar helped to support oil futures, as dollar-denominated futures contracts tend to rise when the dollar falls.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, fell 0.64% to 73.84.
On the ICE Futures Exchange Brent oil futures for October delivery advanced 0.7% to trade at USD111.23.