NEW YORK-The price of oil rose to its high­est point in three months yes­ter­day, top­ping off four straight days of gains, on signs US con­sumers are gain­ing con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my. Bench­mark oil rose 41 cents in New York to end at US$96.01 per bar­rel-the first time it's fin­ished above US$96 since May 11. It gained 3.4 per cent this week on pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic da­ta and a drop in US oil sup­plies, and is up 23 per cent from its late-June low.

The Thom­son Reuters/Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan pre­lim­i­nary Au­gust in­dex of con­sumer sen­ti­ment re­leased yes­ter­day showed its high­est lev­el since May. Most econ­o­mists had been ex­pect­ing a de­cline. That, com­bined with sur­pris­ing­ly strong re­tail sales and hous­ing da­ta, spread hope this week that the econ­o­my is gain­ing trac­tion. Con­sumer spend­ing dri­ves rough­ly 70 per cent of growth.

Word that the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion is con­sid­er­ing a re­lease of oil from the Strate­gic Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve to stem the ris­ing cost of crude ap­peared to have more im­pact on Brent crude, which is used to price in­ter­na­tion­al va­ri­eties of oil. Brent fell US$1.56 to close at US$113.71 a bar­rel on the ICE Fu­tures ex­change in Lon­don. Be­fore yes­ter­day, Brent had climbed more than US$10 per bar­rel this month on con­cerns about pro­duc­tion out­ages in the North Sea. It's al­so more in­flu­enced by de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East.

A se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial­said yes­ter­day that the US is mon­i­tor­ing gas prices to see whether they fall be­fore mak­ing a de­ci­sion to tap strate­gic re­serves. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told re­porters yes­ter­day that the move is an op­tion, but he didn't elab­o­rate.

Gas prices in the US have in­creased an av­er­age of 39 cents a gal­lon (3.8 liters) since ear­ly Ju­ly, be­cause of an in­crease in oil prices and re­fin­ery and pipeline prob­lems in some re­gions. Dri­vers in about 40 states are now pay­ing more for gas on av­er­age than at this time a year ago.

The US re­leased oil from its Strate­gic Pe­tro­le­um Re­serve last sum­mer with on­ly lim­it­ed suc­cess. Oil prices dropped near­ly 5 per cent when the gov­ern­ment an­nounced the re­lease of 30 mil­lion bar­rels from the SPR on Ju­ly 23. Prices re­bound­ed over the next eight days. Oil end­ed the year high­er than it start­ed. Oth­er en­er­gy fu­tures prices on the New York Mer­can­tile Ex­change:

- Heat­ing oil fell 3 cents to fin­ish at US$3.09 per gal­lon.

- Whole­sale gaso­line fell 5.6 cents to end at US$3.03 per gal­lon.

- Nat­ur­al gas fell less than a pen­ny to fin­ish at US$2.72 per 1,000 cu­bic feet.

AP