Oil prices rose more than 3 percent on Thursday, fueled by a rally on Wall Street and better-than-expected U.S. jobs data.

U.S. crude rose $1.54 to $50.92 a barrel by 1540 GMT (11:40 a.m. EDT) while London Brent rose $1.08 to $52.67.

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, said Rob Montefusco, a trader at Sucden Financial.

U.S. stock markets jumped between 2.5 and 3 percent on Thursday after solid earnings from Wells Fargo fed hopes that stability may be returning to the banking sector.

Markets were also bolstered by U.S. data showing fewer workers filing for jobless aid last week than expected.

Oil has closely tracked equities markets this year as investors looked for signs of economic recovery to trigger higher energy demand.

Thursday's gains come after a climb on Wednesday pegged to weekly stocks data from the Energy Information Administration that showed a smaller-than-expected build in U.S. crude inventories and a big slump in distillate stocks.

Adding some support, a pipeline blast in Turkmenistan on Thursday fully halted Turkmen gas exports to Russia.

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.

(Reporting by Joe Brock in London and Richard Valdmanis in New York; editing by Jim Marshall)

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