Oil prices rose Thursday for a third consecutive day. Refined products, led by gasoline, posted strong gains on short-covering in late trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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"Apparently some holders of short positions weren't able to cover without being forced to pay a substantial premium," said Morris Greenberg, vice president for energy futures at Lehman Brothers Inc., adding that prices surged in the last hour. "It's kind of a wild close."Traders expected prices to fall sharply after OPEC failed to cut production levels at its quarterly meeting last weekend. They borrowed contracts and sold them, expecting to replace them with contracts that cost less, a strategy known as short selling.