Oil futures rallied Friday in early Asia trading Friday, as the dollar steadied and traders continued to focus on the prospect of supply disruptions. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in June CLM6, +0.73% traded at $48.68 a barrel, up 52 cents, or 1%, in the Globex electronic session. July Brent crude LCON6, +0.45% on London's ICE Futures exchange rose 37 cents, or 0.8%, to $49.`8 a barrel. The gains follow a quiet session for the oil markets in New York on Thursday, ending little changed in the wake of another unexpected increase in U.S. crude stockpiles. Production outages elsewhere around the world have fueled gains in oil prices in recent weeks. Wildfires in Canada have taken some oil fields there out of commission, while disruptions in Nigeria and Libya have also given prices a lift. "The market is clearly still hawkish on things," said Stuart Ive, private client manager at OM Financial in New Zealand. He said demand is likely to pick up in the U.S. as drivers hit the road this summer. "Don't forget we're moving into the U.S. driving season." Oil prices retreated earlier in the week as the U.S. dollar rallied following indications that the U.S. Federal Reserve could launch another round of rate increases at its next meeting in June. That strengthened the dollar, which tends to push oil prices lower by making the dollar-denominated commodity more expensive for holders of other currencies. Crude prices are still sharply higher on the year, with Brent crude gaining more than 30% year to date following a sharp drop to under $30 a barrel late January. On Friday, the dollar was little changed. The WSJ Dollar Index BUXX, -0.01% was down less than 0.1% recently. In refined product markets, Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for June RBM6, -0.14%,the benchmark gasoline contract, rose 61 points to $1.64 a gallon, while June diesel traded at $1.4832, 44 points higher. ICE gasoil for June changed hands at $439 a metric ton, up $9.50 from Thursday's settlement.
