Speculators, including hedge funds, held a record-high bullish bet on U.S. crude-oil prices in data released Friday by U.S. commodity regulators. Money managers raised their net wagers on rising prices in the futures market to 339,052 contracts as of Tuesday, a 2.2% increase from the previous week. Those positions were worth a combined $34.5 billion at Tuesday’s settlement price of $101.83 a barrel. Futures have rallied in recent weeks as a new pipeline transported crude oil out of storage in Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange that act as a benchmark for U.S. oil prices. A storage glut has built up in Cushing in recent years as U.S. oil production rapidly increased without sufficient transportation channels to connect the crude to existing refineries. The bottleneck kept U.S. prices below that of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, in recent years. […]