By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures rose Friday, recouping some of their recent steep losses and looking to end the quarter with gains of around 4.5%.
Oil for May delivery CLK2 +0.44% advanced 62 cents, or 0.6%, to $103.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On the week, oil is 4% lower.
Prices “could enter into a period of consolidation in the near term due mainly to concerted effort by Saudi [Arabia] and the U.S. to lower oil prices,” said Michael Lo, an analyst at BNP Paribas, in a note to clients.
That consolidation period is likely to last into the third quarter, and a rally could ensue in the last quarter of the year as yearly growth in global oil demand will exceed supplies outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Lo added.
Oil ended at a six-week low on Thursday, following the publication in The Financial Times of an opinion piece penned by Saudi Arabia’s oil minister where he said the kingdom would be able to increase production to counter high prices.
Disappointing U.S. data, reverberations from a massive weekly increase in supplies earlier in the week, and talks of an oil release from emergency supplies of several developed countries also contributed to the bearish tone that has gripped the oil market most of the week.
“Weighing on the oil price is the ongoing debate about the release of strategic oil reserves, as this increasingly appears to be a real option. Besides the U.S., Great Britain and France, it would seem that Japan and South Korea are also considering such a step,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note.
Among other energy products, natural-gas for May delivery NGK12 +0.19% hovered at a 10-year low, losing less than one cent to trade at $2.14 per million British thermal units.
A larger-than-expected increase in supplies took futures on Thursday to their lowest settlement in 10 years.
April gasoline RBJ2 +0.39% gained less than 1 cent, or 0.3%, to $3.41 a gallon. The April contract expires at the end of Friday.
