Crude Up On Concerted Rescue Package

Crude is higher overnight as governments in the U.S. and Europe acted in tandem to stem the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Crude oil for November delivery rose as much as $2.49, or 3.1 percent, to $83.68 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $83.49 a barrel at 08:09 a.m. BST.

President Bush is poised to speak before US markets open this afternoon. He will announce a plan to rescue frozen credit markets that includes spending about half of a total of $250 billion for preferred shares of nine major banks, insiders say.

The banks are said to include Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Still, US oil and gasoline inventories probably rose last week as production increased and refineries opened units that were shut last month because of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

As and when the market gets back to trading fundamentals, the demand picture is likely to continue lower.