US Crude Sees 7th Weekly Gain, Crossing $80 on Hype/Demand Mix By Investing.com – Investing.com

US Crude Sees 7th Weekly Gain, Crossing $80 on Hype/Demand Mix By Investing.com – Investing.com

© Reuters.

By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com - U.S. crude posted a seventh straight weekly gain, its second such winning streak since December, and breached $80 a barrel on Friday for the first time since 2014 in a rally energized as much by hype as real demand.

Crude prices had already been cresting daily highs the past few weeks on signs that Europe could have a brutal winter that could force utilities there to use more oil for power generation and heating instead of overpriced and critically undersupplied .

The rally, however, took on a new dimension in the past 24 hours after Bloomberg discredited a Financial Times report saying the U.S. government was considering selling oil from its reserves and planning to reintroduce a 40-year-old ban on crude exports to cool an energy market that was fueling runaway inflation.

The FT story on Wednesday had quoted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm as saying the sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the crude export ban were among tools the government had to battle a supply and price crisis in oil now. 

Bloomberg, following up on that report, said on Thursday the Energy Department had “no plans to take action at