Oil Jumps As Support For Cut Extensions Grows

Oil prices surged on Friday as traders began to take seriously the prospect of an extension beyond next March of producers' supply curbs. International benchmark Brent crude traded 63 cents higher at $22.74 a barrel after Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah said he supported this week's Saudi proposal to consider leaving the output limits in place longer than the one-year term agreed last March.