Crude oil prices rose Friday after a fire at a BP refinery heightened concern that fuel production might not meet demand.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude oil futures for September deliver rose 63 cents to end at 60.57 dollars. Prices touched as high as 61.05 dollars during intraday trading. Meanwhile, on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the September Brent crude-oil futures contract climbed 61 cents to settle at 59.37 dollars.

BP Plc. said the fire at its Texas City, Texas, facility resulted from a blast yesterday and was extinguished today. While total output from the site was little changed, traders worried that fuel producers would struggle to meet increasing demand.

A Bloomberg survey also showed that many analysts expected crude oil futures to rise for a third week next week as stockpiles would declined because of higher fuel demand.

Source: Xinhua