The rates of crude oil plummeted on Thursday but are expected to rise soon. This week's revised upward momentum is keeping alive the possibility of a run toward the $84-$85 (a barrel) area as told by Jim Ritterbusch, President of Ritterbusch & Associates. An improved speculative incursion into the extended side is mounting even in the middle of plenty supply cover in both crude and products.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $82.26 a barrel at 0634 GMT, but down by $0.67 in the Globex electronic session. May Brent crude, on London's ICE Futures exchange, fell from $0.63 to $81.33 a barrel.

Traders would, however, start getting benefits or profits around $83 a barrel in the later period. U. S. oil inventory data showed that there may be some limited gains in oil prices. Crude stockpiles rose by 1 million barrels in the week to March 12, according to data released overnight by the U. S. Energy Information Administration.

Global oil demand is expected to grow by about 1 million bpd by the second half of this year.