Oil prices climb to highest levels in more than a week as post-Fed rally continues

Oil prices rose again Friday to their highest levels in more than a week as a weaker U.S. dollar boosted commodity prices in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s latest batch of economic and interest rate projections.

Price action

• West Texas Intermediate crude for January
  CL00,
  -0.52%

  CL.1,
  -0.52%
  gained 48 cents, or 0.7%, to $72.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

• February Brent crude
  BRN00,
  -0.47%

  BRNG24,
  -0.47%,
  the global benchmark, gained 49 cents, or 0.6%, to $77 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

• January gasoline
  RBF24,
  +0.14%
  gained 0.7% to $2.13 a gallon, while January heating oil
  HOF24,
  +0.36%
  rose by 1.2% to $2.62 a gallon on Nymex.

• Natural gas for January delivery
  NGF24,
  +3.89%
  gained 1.5% to $2.43 per million British thermal units.

Market drivers

Oil prices have rebounded this week following their worst streak of losses since 2018. Commodity-market experts have largely attributed the move to a combination of short-covering and a weaker U.S. dollar.