Crude Firmed Monday

Crude futures strengthened Monday above $48 a barrel, the highest since the end of November.

Light sweet February delivery futures rose 34 cents to $48.38 a barrel by midmorning in Asia. Heating oil gained was up less than 5 cents to $1.3509 a gallon.

"The market is very well-supported," said Esa Ramasamy, oil editorial manager at the energy reporting agency Platts. "If there's no increase in supplies, the prices would hold up."

Outages in the North Sea and Nigeria, along with continuing production shutdowns in the Gulf of Mexico, have kept nearly 1 million barrels a day off the market.

Meanwhile, continuing sabotage attacks on Iraq's northern pipeline infrastructure and power problems in the south have reduced exports. OPEC's implementation of an output cut of 1 million barrels per day from the beginning of the year either also can be the reason .