LONDON -- This week has seen the price of oil move energetically upward before falling back again, with both main crude benchmarks peaking on Thursday. Brent crude briefly breached the $116 level before settling back to around $115, while West Texas intermediate crude came close to $98 per barrel before dropping back to around $96 when U.S. markets opened this morning, leaving it almost unchanged on the week.
Natural gas prices have held onto their gains more successfully this week, with the Henry Hub price rising from around $2.70/mmbtu on Monday to $2.81/mmbtu on Friday morning, a gain of 4.5%.
As a result, the United States Oil Fund was up by 0.6% when U.S. markets opened today, while the United States Natural Gas Fund was 1.8% higher.
High oil prices are continuing to support the share prices of small oil companies, and this week has seen some massive share price moves. I've highlighted three of this week's top performers below:
Borders & Southern Petroleum
Borders & Southern Petroleum
Heritage Oil
Heritage Oil
Advantage Oil & Gas
Advantage Oil & Gas
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