SHANGHAI, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Crude oil futures closed higher Thursday at the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE).

The most active crude oil contract for May delivery was up 4.4 yuan (about 66 U.S. cents) to close at 480.1 yuan a barrel.

On Thursday, the total trading volume for eight listed crude oil futures contracts on the exchange was 271,776 lots, with a turnover of 130.3 billion yuan.

China launched the crude oil futures trading, which is open to overseas investment, on March 26 last year.