Oil rose above $52 a barrel on Thursday as rallies on global stock markets revived thoughts of economic recovery and subsequent increased demand for oil.

U.S. stock markets jumped more than two percent on Thursday after some upbeat earnings results and better-than-expected jobs data. This followed equity gains on Asian and European markets.

U.S. light crude for May delivery rose $2.66 cents to $52.04 a barrel by 1355 GMT (9:55 a.m. EDT).

London Brent crude rose $2.24 to $53.83.

I think oil is going up with a lot of other markets at the moment, stock markets have risen and base metals are performing well, Rob Montefusco, a trader at Sucden Financial, said.

U.S. shares were boosted by the release of solid preliminary quarterly results from Wells Fargo, fuelling hopes that some stability may be returning to the banking sector.

In another snapshot of the U.S. economy, and a signal for future oil demand, the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless aid fell last week, data showed on Thursday.

Oil has often tracked equities this year as investors looked for signs of economic recovery to trigger higher oil demand.

Oil prices have consolidated gains made on Wednesday after weekly stocks data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the United States showed a lower than expected build in crude oil stocks on Wednesday.

The data was supportive because we were all anticipating weak numbers and they came pretty much in line, the distillate stocks were also a surprise, Sucden's Montefusco said.

The EIA said commercial inventories of crude oil rose 1.7 million barrels to 361.1 million barrels in the week ended April 3. Analysts had forecast a build of 1.9 million barrels.

Distillate stocks fell 3.4 million barrels, much more than the 200,000 barrel draw analysts had projected, to 140.8 million barrels.

A pipeline blast in Turkmenistan on Thursday fully halted Turkmen gas exports to Russia, which said the accident would not have an impact on its customers in Europe.

The accident won't have an impact on gas supplies to Gazprom's customers, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom said in a statement, which did not specify the cause of the explosion but said it had caused a fire.

(Editing by Sue Thomas)