SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures climbed Friday to close near $114 a barrel, buoyed by weakness in the U.S. dollar as traders kept watch on developments in the Middle East and North Africa for potential supply disruptions. “There are a number of factors pushing the price of crude oil higher: a weaker dollar, accommodative (Federal Reserve) policy and the beginning of an expansionary growth cycle,” said Jason Schenker, president and chief economist at Prestige Economics in Austin, Texas, in emailed comments. “These factors are likely to remain in play for some time and pose continued asymmetric upside risk to crude-oil prices.” Light, sweet crude for June delivery /quotes/comstock/21n!f:cl\m11 tacked on $1.07, or 1%, to settle at $113.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after touching a low of $112.25 in electronic trading overnight. The June contract finished at its highest settlement price since September 2008. Tracking the front-month contract, crude futures tallied gains of 1.5% for the week and 6.8% for the month. The dollar index/quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of major currencies, fell to its weakest level since July 2008. It was last at 72.924 Friday, after hitting a low of 72.834. That compares with 73.127 in late U.S. trading Thursday. “Oil is up on a weaker dollar and the fact that since the U.K. markets are closed for the Royal Wedding, we are missing that segment of traders,” said John Person, president of NationalFutures.com. Also, “no one wants to sell oil in front of a weekend in case there is a flare-up in the Middle East,” and Friday’s rally in the U.S. stock market “gives confidence that businesses are not being hindered by the cost increases in energy prices,” he said. Regional turmoil Energy traders continued to monitor developments in the Middle East and North Africa for potential disruptions to oil supplies. In particular, the situation in Nigeria following the recent presidential elections will be a focus for crude traders, analysts at Barclays Capital said in a research note. “The key concern for the coming weeks is whether the upsurge in violence and unrest in the northern part of the country associated with Goodluck Jonathan’s victory in the presidential elections last week will dissipate and oil production will remain unaffected,” the analysts wrote. Overall, the size of the “geopolitical risk premium” in oil will be a “major variable price component for the foreseeable future,” said Tim Evans, an oil analyst with Citigroup’s Citi Futures Perspective, in a note to clients. An end to the Libyan civil war may send prices tumbling, while a spread of unrest and additional supply disruptions across the Middle East and North Africa may push prices higher, he said. Most U.S. hedge funds and other money managers are betting oil will climb further. Demand concerns Meanwhile, concern that high prices for oil and gasoline will pressure consumer demand has been a key driver for oil. The latest batch of economic numbers “set a tone that the economy is as the

[Federal Reserve] stated this week, moderately strong,” said Person. “This leads traders to believe demand will
[be] at least stable.” U.S. data Friday showed that the Chicago purchasing managers index, a barometer of business trends, fell in April, while consumer spending rose in March. Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities, said “worries about consumer demand in the U.S. are foggy, emphasizing this hazy and unformed view that consumer demand is going to contract bad enough to damage prices.” But “the evidence from consumer spending at retail and entertainment and other categories says consumers are reacting favorably to having enough bucks from working again, and this will continue to offset the demand contraction effect, thus reducing this as a major threat to the bull’s healthy prognosis,” he said. In other energy trading Friday, May heating oil /quotes/comstock/21n!f:ho\k11 finished at $3.26 a gallon, up 2 cents, or 0.8%, while May gasoline /quotes/comstock/21n!3089643 rose 3 cents, or 1%, to $3.47 a gallon. Both contracts expired after the close of trading Friday. June has become the front-month contract. On Friday, June heating oil /quotes/comstock/21n!f:ho\m11 HOM11 +0.92%  added 0.9% to end at $3.28 a gallon, while June gasoline /quotes/comstock/21n!3089650 RBM11 +0.85%  closed up 0.9% at $3.40. At the retail level, the average national price for a gallon of regular gasoline climbed to $3.909, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. It’s up 8.7% from a month ago. Read more on gasoline data. Natural gas for June delivery /quotes/comstock/21n!f:ng\m11 NGM11 +2.79%  ended higher, at $4.689 per million British thermal units, up 13 cents after tacking on almost 4% Thursday. The contract closed out last week at $4.41.