West Texas Intermediate crude settled above $100 for a fourth day this week on better-than-expected U.S. consumer confidence. Prices gained 0.4 percent since Feb. 7, capping the longest stretch of weekly increases in more than a year. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of sentiment held at 81.2 this month, and supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma , the delivery point for New York futures, slid to a three-month low. WTI was lower for most of the day after the Federal Reserve said factory production dropped the most since May 2009 in January. “The economic news is not really bad,” said Michael Lynch , president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts . “You are getting some pretty strong support around $100. We’ve seen such a reduction in Cushing inventories.” WTI for March delivery dropped 5 cents to settle at $100.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile […]