By JUDITH NAMUTOWE
BRENT oil climbed above $58 a barrel for the second straight session as speculators covered their positions ahead of the April contract’s expiry, while a strengthening dollar and a build in United States crude stocks capped prices.
Reuters said oil for April delivery was up 47 cents to $58.01 after gaining $1.15, or two percent, in the previous session in a rebound from a one-month low.
The benchmark hit $58.25 a barrel earlier in the session, while West Texas Intermediate climbed 29 cents to $48.46, after closing the previous session down 12 cents.
Brent’s premium to United States crude yesterday widened to almost $10 a barrel, after dropping below $8 on Tuesday, its narrowest in a month.
US crude inventories rose for the ninth straight week by 4.5 million barrels last week to 448.9 million, US Department of Energy data showed. Meanwhile, copper prices on the International market jumped on Thursday after better-than-expected lending data out of China brightened the outlook for demand and triggered short-covering, adding to support built on supply concerns.
According to Reuters, three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) jumped by 1.3 per cent to $5,802 by 0728 GMT, after a small loss in the previous session when it slipped to its weakest since February 24, 2015 at $5,710 a tonne. Meanwhile, gold gained one per cent  on short-covering after eight days of losses and as the dollar slipped from a near 12-year peak, but increasing concerns over a near-term interest rate rise in the United States kept the metal under pressure.
Spot gold jumped about one per cent to a session high of $1,166.30 an ounce. It had dropped for eight days in a row to Wednesday, when it also reached its lowest since December 1, 2014 of $1,147.10.
On the local market, the Kwacha was trading in the range K7.000 and K7.280.