Oil futures edged lower Friday, but remained on track for a strong week of gains, after news that another 663,000 jobs were lost in March somewhat curbed the previous session's optimism about a U.S. and a global economic recovery. Crude oil for May delivery dropped 51 cents to $52.15 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. "The headline data were right on forecasts, failing to realize the worst fears of a greater than 700,000 drop in jobs," said analysts at Action Economics. The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 663,000 in March, close to expectations, while the unemployment rate jumped to 8.5% as expected from 8.1%. Payrolls in previous months were revised lower by a total of 86,000. January's revised job loss of 741,000 was the worst since 1949. In February, 651,000 jobs were lost. The total number of jobs lost since the recession began has now surged to 5.1 million. See Economic Report. Oil futures rallied nearly 9% Thursday, marking the biggest one-day gain in nearly three weeks on optimism that measures agreed by the global leaders meeting in London may pull the global economy out of recession. The Group of 20 nations agreed to provide a total of $1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund and other institutions to tackle the global economic downturn. Total fiscal stimulus is expected to amount to $5 trillion, according to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In other energy news, Mexico's oil exports could decline by 18% in 2010, suggesting that crude production could drop below 2.5 million barrels per day next year, the Mexican finance ministry said, according to a report by Reuters. The ministry projected that oil exports would drop to 1.125 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2010 from 1.370 million bpd forecast for this year, the report said. Also on Globex, May reformulated gasoline fell 1 cent to $1.46 a gallon and May heating oil dropped 2 cents to $1.42 a gallon. May natural gas futures dropped 4 cents to $3.74 per million British thermal units.

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