Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November added 34 cents to $110.37 a barrel in London midday trading.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for November, gained 67 cents to $93.09 a barrel.
"The recent decline in oil prices supports our view that a third round of quantitative easing from the US Fed is unlikely to cause global inflation to take off," said Julian Jessop, chief economist at Capital Economics research group.
"Unfortunately, the boost to economic activity from additional monetary stimulus probably won't be very large either."
Oil prices plunged about 10 dollars a barrel since the start of the week up until Thursday, when they began to rebound.
Futures tumbled, with Brent closing down almost four dollars Wednesday, on talk that Saudi Arabia was boosting crude supplies. Losses were extended owing to the prospect of weaker energy demand by China, traders said.
Analysts said recent price support won from the US Federal Reserve's decision last week to embark on a third round of exceptional stimulus measures, or quantitative easing (QE3), had tailed off.
Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said earlier this month that prices were too high, amid fears that expensive energy would undermine attempts to boost global economic growth.
The Saudi position was rekindled on Wednesday after the Financial Times said that the world's biggest oil exporter had been offering customers extra supplies.
Crude demand worries were meanwhile stoked after British banking giant HSBC released data Thursday showing China's manufacturing sector still stuck in a rut.
Trader sentiment was lifted slightly on Friday by "rumours that the Spanish might be about to put on the table terms of a bailout", said Jason Hughes, head of premium client management for trading group IG Markets in Singapore.
"We're finally getting to the point in time where it looks like they're going to finally come up with a proposal for actually receiving a bailout of some sort," he told AFP.
A Financial Times report on Friday said EU authorities were working behind the scenes to prepare the ground for a new rescue programme and unlimited bond buying by the European Central Bank for debt-hit Spain, which would be unveiled next week.
