Oil Rises to Close Above $71 a Barrel

Oil prices rebounded Monday from early declines to settle above $71 for the first time in 10 months as traders focused on a refinery outage in Kansas and new accusations about Iran's role in Lebanon and Iraq.

Early in the day, investors sold to lock in profits from last week's rally, which drove prices above $70 a barrel for the first time since August. But as the day wore on, light, sweet crude for August delivery rose, settling up 41 cents at $71.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and up from a session low of $69.57. On Friday, oil prices rose to close above $70 a barrel for the first time in 10 months.

On Monday, gasoline futures for August rose 0.59 cent to settle at $2.2487 a gallon. Earlier in the day, gas futures were off by more than 4 cents a gallon.

August Brent crude futures rose $1.22 to settle at $72.63 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Nymex heating oil futures for August rose 1.94 cents to $2.0618 a gallon, while natural gas prices fell 0.9 cent to settle at $6.764 per 1,000 cubic feet.