US oil prices hover close to $40

The combination of an upbeat jobs report and OPEC’s weekend meeting to discuss continued oil production cuts prompted oil prices to jump to nearly $40 a barrel in the U.S. and stocks in oil firms to soar.

West Texas Intermediate futures shot up nearly 6% or $2.14 a barrel, finishing Friday at $39.55 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.  Brent crude on the ICE futures rose $1.91 or 4.78% before ending the day at $41.90 a barrel.

Natural gas prices fell 4 cents or 2.20% to settle at $1.78 per MMBtu.

Oklahoma and Texas oil and gas firms saw unexpected increases in their shares with Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy seeing the highest increase at nearly 77%. Shares finished Friday’s trading up $10.75 before finishing at $24.80.

Occidental Petroleum, another firm like Chesapeake that has been mentioned as candidates for bankruptcy this year saw shares shoot up 34% or $5.24 each before ending the day’s trading at $20.79.

ConocoPhillips jumped 9% or $3.88 a share and ended the day at $48.59. Devon Energy shot up 15% or $1.88 and settled at $14.60 a share.

EOG Resources rose 7.5% or $4.16 a share and finished the day at $59.31. Marathon Oil jumped up 17.49% or $1.09 and ended at $7.32 per share.

ONEOK saw an increase of 11% or $4.63 before trading ended at $45.35 a share. Phillips 66 saw a 5.13% increase or $4.26 a share as trading finished Friday at $87.40.

American Electric Power added $1.11 to reach $85.51 a share. Mammoth Energy Services finished the day up 27 cents and settled at $1.51 a share.

NGL Energy Partners rose 53 cents before ending at $6.93 a share.