NEW YORK, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices moved higher on Friday, logging pronounced gains for the week.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery added 1.41 U.S. dollars to settle at 52.24 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for March delivery increased 1.61 dollars to close at 55.99 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

For the week, U.S. benchmark WTI crude rose 7.7 percent, while Brent crude was up 8.1 percent. The gain marked a ninth weekly increase out of the last 10 weeks for both benchmarks.

This is testimony to the strength of the oil market in the last two and a half months, Carsten Fritsch, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Friday.

"While it was hopes on the demand side fuelled by the availability of vaccines that initially sparked the upswing, it has been news on the supply side that have boosted prices this week," he added.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, pledged a voluntary oil production cut of 1 million barrels per day beyond the required OPEC+ quotas in February and March.

Meanwhile, a hefty drop in the U.S. crude inventories lent a support to the prices.

U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 8.0 million barrels during the week ending Jan. 1, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report on Wednesday. Analysts polled by the Reuters had expected the EIA publication to show a 2.1 million-barrel drop in U.S. supplies last week. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)