Oil rises above $92 per barrel

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 80 cents to finish at $92.20 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of crude, rose 61 cents to end at $109.55 per barrel in London.Oil has gained nearly 20 percent since hitting a low of $77.69 in late June.Mondays increase for oil followed a big spike on Friday. Thats when oil gained almost 5 percent after the U.S. government reported a surge in jobs growth last month, increasing optimism that the economy is on the right track. The pickup in hiring last month was far greater than analysts were expecting and marked the biggest increase since February. Still, the number of U.S. jobs added wasnt enough that investors are ruling out some sort of economic stimulus measures by the Federal Reserve.In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, wolesale gasoline fell 0.88 cent to $2.9222 a gallon; heating oil rose 1.48 cents to $2.9409 a gallon; and natural gas gained 3.1 cents to $2.908 per 1,000 cubic feet.