Crude oil prices staged a rally in afternoon Asia trade Friday after the European Central Bank hinted at more stimulus measures, but the commodity’s expanding global surplus is expected to soon extinguish any price gains. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $30.64 a barrel at 0634 GMT, up $1.11 in the Globex electronic session. March Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $1.36 to $30.61 a barrel. At one point, Brent prices reached $31.10 a barrel and Nymex rose as high as to $31.04 a barrel. Asia shares also soared in the afternoon as investors are putting their hopes in more stimulus from the ECB. The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.4% after a choppy morning of trading, as investors assessed comments by officials on […]