Crude climbs on Greek vote for austerity

Forexpros - Crude oil futures rose Monday after Greece's parliament voted to accept tough austerity measures in exchange for bailout money, alleviating fears of a messy default that would have rattled the European economy and crimped oil demand.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at USD98.64 a barrel, up 0.61%.

The commodity hit an earlier session high of USD99.89 and a low of USD99.44.

Greek lawmakers voted to accept politically popular austerity measures designed to streamline public finances in exchange for access to a EUR130 billion bailout package needed for the country to avoid default.

Despite widespread protests that roiled Athens over the weekend in opposition to the measures, approval in parliament eased fears that the country would end up bankrupt and threaten the economic stability of the entire continent, which would dampen oil demand.

"It’s a confidence builder in terms of Greece’s willingness to implement reform," said Ric Spooner, a chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, according to Bloomberg.

"The market has made the adjustment it needed to make from being excessively pessimistic a few months ago and has now based itself on an assumption of moderate international growth."

Furthermore, sentiment that the U.S. and Chinese economies were poised for growth coupled with ongoing tensions in Syria further pushed up the commodity in early Asian trading on Monday.

On the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for April delivery were up 0.31% and trading at USD117.47 a barrel, up USD18.83 from its U.S. counterpart.

The gap in price between the two contracts is pushing very close toward the higher end of a range between a nearly USD20.00 all-time high and a historical spread of USD1.00.