NEW YORK, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Crude prices surged Friday, erasing the previous day's losses as rhetoric between the United States and Iraq heated up.
October crude settled 96 cents higher at $29.81 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz rejected President George W. Bush's demand that U.N. weapons inspectors be allowed to resume their task of ferreting out possible weapons of mass destruction.
NYMEX gasoline and heating oil for October both climbed more than 2 cents per gallon, while November crude on London's International Petroleum Exchange closed 86 cents higher, at $28.76 per barrel, as trading on the October contract expired.
Aziz said in a televised interview from Baghdad that accusations Bush made in his U.N. speech Thursday about Iraq's nuclear and chemical weapons development programs were "lies" and that the Iraqi government would not allow the inspectors unlimited access to their facilities.
NYMEX crude had lost 92 cents on Thursday after Bush's speech indicated the United States would seek U.N. backing for any military action against Iraq, but as Aziz was rejecting calls for new arms inspections Friday, the president said he wanted a decision from the United Nations in "days and weeks, not months and years."
Bullishness was also seen Friday in the NYMEX natural gas market, which jumped 13.8 cents to $3.467 per million BTU as Tropical Storm Hanna stalled in the offshore gas-producing areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
