In Dubai, the DME Oman Crude Futures contract went up 0.19 cent or 0.17 percent to reach 108.15 U.S. dollars, while U.S. crude surged by 0.63 cent or 0.66 percent to 95.86 dollars in late trading. The two oil futures contracts were thus trading a one- month and three-month high, respectively.

　　Earlier in the day, Christine Lagarde, director general of the International Monetary Fund, said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos, that the eurozone economy's decline would decelerate by shrinking by 0.2 percent in 2013 after 0.4 percent last year, which weighed on oil prices on early Thursday, but only for a short period of time.

　　Positive input from China, where manufacturing output reached a two-year high Thursday, and the United States which reported that jobless claims touched a five-year low, lifted the price of the " black gold."British bank HSBC said that its index of purchasing managers, a figure above 50 signals expansion, in the world's second biggest economy of China, climbed to 51.9 points in January, 0.04 point up from last month.

　　The U.S. labor department said first time that claims for unemployment benefits in the world's largest economy declined by 5, 000 last week to 330,000, marking the lowest level since January, 2008.