Crude oil prices climb after US growth figures

Oil prices rose reversing some of this week's losses, as traders welcomed better-than-expected economic growth data in the United States.

Oil prices rose Friday, reversing some of this week's losses, as traders welcomed better-than-expected economic growth data in the United States.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, gained 64 cents to 74.30 dollars a barrel.

London's Brent North Sea crude for March delivery was up 71 cents to 72.84 dollars at about 1630 GMT.

The US economy roared back to life with a 5.7 percent growth pace in the fourth quarter, led by brisk business spending to restock inventories and for new equipment and software, official data showed Friday.

The Commerce Department report on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the strongest growth in six years, even though consumer spending, the traditional driver of most economic activity, remained sluggish.

The robust growth in the October-December quarter was the best since 2003 and significantly better than the 4.7 percent expected by analysts.

The GDP surprise helped reverse some of the losses suffered earlier this week as the market worried over the economic outlook and the dollar rose.

The GDP report is a key release.

"The market's obviously been hit pretty hard ... a bounce may have been in order anyway and (now) you have the better than expected GDP," said BNP Parbis analyst Tom Bentz, cited by Dow Jones Newswires.

The GDP report is a key release because the United States is the biggest oil consuming nation in the world.

The euro slid to a six-month low below 1.39 dollars on Friday as worries deepened about the state of the European economies in light of Greece's debt woes, dealers said.

Oil is traded in US dollars and a rise in the currency makes the commodity more expensive to holders of weaker units.

Some analysts said prices were stabilising after falling 10 dollars in two weeks due to worries over possible moves by China to rein in its booming economy, which is a major consumer of raw materials.

Oil fell on Thursday as the head of Saudi oil giant Aramco sought to ease international concerns over dwindling crude stocks.

Khalid al Falih, Aramco's chairman and chief executive, hit out at "misleading" rhetoric that the world was weaning itself off fossil fuels, saying this did not give producers confidence to keep investing in future output.

He told a World Economic Forum session on the global energy outlook: ''We feel that the whole issue that came to the surface and created a lot of concern about peak oil is behind us.''

The head of the world's biggest producer company added that his firm was able to maintain a cushion of four million barrels a day of spare capacity even if global demand were to grow.