* Egypt's unrest rattles markets, sends oil soaring
* U.S. growth, consumer spending speeds up in Q4
* Brent/U.S. crude spread narrows from 2-year peak
* Coming Up: CFTC positions data, 3:30 p.m. EST Friday
(Recasts, updates prices and market activity)
By Robert Gibbons
NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Brent oil surged toward $100 a
barrel on Friday and U.S. crude jumped more that 4 percent in
heavy trade as unrest in Egypt rattled markets.
Brent pushed back above $99 a barrel to a 2011 peak as
protests in Egypt and the government's response intensified and
investors became increasingly wary about the turmoil.
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"It's knocking on $100 a barrel. Whenever you have violence
in the Middle East, you have (traders) buying on risk. It will
come off as quickly as it got there," said analyst Andrey
Kryuchenkov at VTB Capital in London.
Earlier, oil prices received a boost from news that the
U.S. economy gathered speed in the fourth quarter, fueled by
the biggest gain in consumer spending in more than four years
and strong exports. []
In London, ICE Brent crude for March <LCOc1> rose $2.08 to
$99.47 a barrel at 12:59 p.m. EST (1759 GMT), having reached
$99.74, eclipsing the earlier 2011 peak of $99.20 on Jan. 14.
U.S. crude oil for March delivery <CLc1> rose $3.59, or
4.19 percent, to $89.23 a barrel.
The bigger U.S. gains squeezed Brent's premium over its
U.S. counterpart <CL-LCO1=R>, which had stretched to more than
$12 per barrel, its widest since January 2009. []
Total U.S. crude volume was above 1.06 million lots traded
just after 12:45 p.m. EST (1630 GMT), according to Reuters
data, nearing its record 1.432 million lots.
Total Brent trading volume was above 487,000 lots traded,
according to Reuters data, 27 percent above the 250-day
average.
"There is growing concern about the situation in Egypt and
Yemen and there may be worry about not going into the weekend
being too short," said Phil Flynn, analyst at PFGBest Research
in Chicago.
The dollar and U.S. Treasuries rose and stocks fell around
the globe as concerns that the protests in Egypt will intensify
and spread across the Middle East drove investors to seek safer
assets. []
President Hosni Mubarak imposed curfews across Egypt as
media coverage of growing unrest further unsettled global
financial markets where investors had been accelerating moves
into riskier assets.
(Additional reporting by Gene Ramos in New York and
Christopher Johnson and Emma Farge in London; Editing by
Marguerita Choy)
