A batch of cold weather is spreading across Europe, pumping up demand for Brent crude. On the ICE exchange, January Brent traded at $90.69 per barrel, up $1.82, the Financial Times reported.

Brent crude -- the benchmark used by Europeans -- contracts are in 'backwardation,' the FT notes. Backwardation happens when the market quotes a lower price for a more distant delivery day. For example, January Brent is 4 cents higher than February and 10 cents higher than March. Backwardation usually means that there is strong immediate demand for the product.

Oil prices headed lower on Wednesday after the Department of Energy announced a surprise increase in inventories last week.

Analysts had been expecting to see oil reserves decline last week by 1.4 million barrels, but the weekly inventory report showed that inventories actually increased during the week by 400,00 barrels.

Oil prices have been falling recently, and they continued to fall Wednesday, resulting in oil having its first losing quarter since the end of 2008.

Oil prices have dropped by 9.7% since the end of the first quarter on growing concerns over the global economy and due to lackluster summer demand.

On Tuesday, the big news was that China was growing slower than previously expected. On Wednesday, we had two pieces of news affecting oil prices: oil inventories and a weak jobs report.

In Asian trade Thursday morning, oil was pushed past $74 per barrel following a report that crude inventories in the U.S. fell more than expected. The July crude contract hit $74.25 in late trading, an increase of $1.39 per barrel. The drop in oil supplies was attributed to growing consumer demand. A week ago, crude supplies dropped by 1.4 million barrels while analysts were calling for an increase of 1 million barrels.

According to Barclays Capital, "Oil prices are clearly at the mercy of jittery nerves and fragile sentiment ... Once the nerves calm down, and fundamentals reassert themselves, we would expect prices to move higher quickly." Solid reasoning, but I don't think that Barclays is really going out on a limb here.

Oil prices have rebounded from yesterday's sell off, despite a larger than expected increase in oil inventories last week.

As we noted yesterday, analysts were expecting to see a 250,000 barrel increase in reserves last week, but the Department of Energy reported today that inventories actually rose by a much greater 2.4 million barrels.

Oil prices continue their recent slide today, with investors spooked by the global economy and a lower price forecast by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Concerns over the economic situation in Europe continue to weigh on investor's minds, and the major indexes were down over 2% at one point today before rebounding in late day trading.

Oil prices continue their decline, falling today to levels not seen since mid-February.

Concerns continue to linger about the economic situation in Europe, which has been giving the U.S. dollar a major boost, driving oil lower. Oil fell $1.25 a barrel today to $74.40.

There are plans in place to combat the crisis in Greece, but experts are skeptical that the $1 trillion package and additional austerity measures will be able to completely correct the debt problem the country is experiencing.

Oil is trading higher on the day, but prices have fallen a good bit from the high they hit immediately following this week's inventory report.

Prices rose as high as $83.03 a barrel, and are currently trading at $81.97, up $0.48.

The reason why prices spiked so much following the report was the initial reaction to the smaller than expected rise in crude reserves. Analysts had been looking to see a jump of 2.1 million barrels last week, but the report indicated that inventories rose by a much smaller 1.4 million barrels.

Oil prices traded lower Wednesday following an inventory report from the Department of Energy that showed a larger than expected increase in oil reserves last week.

Analysts had been expecting oil supplies to increase by roughly 1.9 million barrels, but were surprised to see the actual increase a much higher at 3.7 million barrels.

Following the unexpected rise in inventories, oil moved lower on the day and closed a bit under the psychological $80 barrier at $79.60. On Thursday oil prices crawled up to near $80 a barrel.

Oil prices, which were up earlier in the session, have moved lower in afternoon trading after the dollar rebounded from earlier losses.

Earlier in the session, the U.S. dollar had dropped as much as 0.3% against competing currencies, but reversed course and made back most of its losses. The greenback is now down just 0.1% on the day against competing currencies.

The price of oil has risen from about $30 per barrel at the height of the economic recession to the present $77 per barrel. Much of the increase is due to the weakness in the U.S. dollar. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil (XOM) told CNBC: "If you put the price of oil, which is priced in dollars around the world, and if you look at what some effects are with the weak dollar -- in our view that is contributing $20 to $25 dollars per barrel to the price."

Globally, Tillerson said, oil is well supplied with historic high inventory levels, especially in the U.S. This is causing the market to be a "bit soft," according to Tillerson.

Today would have been an exciting day with positive and mixed economic data, a big draw in oil inventories, and the FOMC minutes coming out. But the trading volume is drying up as the A-Team traders are throwing in the towel and not coming back to work until next Tuesday. This was one of those days where there was no feel for an up or down day literally until right at the closing bell.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

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Oil prices dropped a bit today, after a government report showed that inventories unexpectedly rose last week.

According to today's report from the Commerce Department, oil inventories rose by 200,000 barrels last week. Going into today's report analysts had forecast a 1.1 million barrel drop in supplies.

Oil prices are moving strongly higher today following a government report that showed inventories dropped dramatically last week.

Today's report from the Energy Department indicated that oil inventories fell by 8.4 million barrels last week, in stark contrast to the increase of 1.2 million barrels that analysts had been expecting to see for the precious crude.

This morning, oil firm Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) posted second-quarter earnings and a warning about North American natural gas markets. First things first, HAL reported second-quarter earnings of 30 cents per share (excluding a $12-million charge stemming from job cuts). While these results were far worse than the 55 cents per share the company earned a year ago, they still managed to top the consensus estimate by four cents per share. The situation was the same for quarterly revenue, which fell to $3.49 billion (from $4.49 billion a year ago) but still managed to outpace the Street's expectations - which called for $3.41 billion.