Crude Oil Up More Than 5% for the Week
By the end of trading Friday, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was closer to $60 than $50 and the price of Brent crude was nearer to $70 than $60.
The WTI for March delivery gained $1.18 Friday, settling at $55.59 per barrel. It peaked at $55.80 and bottomed out at $54.24 during the end-of-week session. Compared to the Feb. 8 settlement, the WTI is up 5.4 percent.
The April Brent crude oil contract price settled at $66.25 per barrel, reflecting a day-on-day gain of $1.68. For the week, the Brent is up 6.7 percent.
As Bloomberg reported earlier Friday, crude oil has received support from a pledge by Russia to speed up cuts to its oil production in conjunction with a broader effort by the OPEC+ group to stabilize the oil market. Moreover, the news service also noted that an accident prompted Saudi Arabia to suspend production from its massive Safaniya offshore oil field.
In its most recent “This Week in Petroleum” report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) sated that domestic commercial crude oil inventories rose by 3.6 million barrels last week to 450.8 million barrels. Compared to the corresponding period in 2018, crude stocks were up 6.8 percent.
EIA also reported that U.S. crude oil production last week held steady at 11.9 million barrels per day for the fifth straight week. On the topic of streaks, Baker Hughes, a GE Company reported Friday that U.S. drilling rig activity is up for the second consecutive week.
Reformulated gasoline (RBOB) futures ended the day higher as well. The March RBOB contract gained 6 cents to settle at $1.57 per gallon. Since last Friday, RBOB has added 8.3 percent.
Henry Hub natural gas rounded out the uptick in energy commodity prices Friday. The March gas benchmark price increased by a nickel to end the day at $2.625. For the week, natural gas is up 1.7 percent.
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