Oil prices rise 1.4 percent Friday after a 4.9 percent increase Thursday as U.S. oil production drops and tension in Yemen increase ANKARA The price of Brent crude oil price jumps above $65 per barrel Friday, the highest level for the year and since Dec. 10. The price of the global benchmark rose 1.4 percent Friday to reach as high as $65.66 per barrel after it opened the day at $64.73 per barrel. This price is higher than the previous record for the year reached on Feb. 17 when the price of Brent crude had reached as high as $62.97. The price of the benchmark is back to its level on Dec. 10 when it was above $66 per barrel. "Prices have been increasing in the last few weeks," Thomas Pugh, a commodities economist at Capital Economics, a London-based independent research company, told The Anadolu Agency. "There is more evidence that U.S. oil production is decreasing a lot quicker than most expected," he emphasized. For the world's third-biggest crude oil producer the U.S., oil output has been falling recently, with the steep decline inoil prices causing the closing down of a number of oil rigs in the country -- the amount has halved since last October. According to the U.S.-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes, the number of oil drilling rigs fell by 42 to reach 760 last week. This was the 18th consecutive weekly decline for the oil rig count, which fell 53 percent since reaching a peak of 1,609 in October. In addition, domestic oil production in the U.S. fell to 9.37 million barrels a day for the week ending on April 17, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA. The U.S. agency said the U.S. oil output was 9.38 million barrels a day for the week ending on April 10, and 9.4 million barrels per day the week before. "This will be the trend in the next few months," said Pugh, stating that he is expecting high prices throughout the third quarter of 2015. Conflict in Yemen "Increasing tensions in Yemen is also putting pressure on prices to rise," Pugh said. The reported airstrikes on Yemen Thursday by Saudi-led coalition again raised concerns over secure oil transit on the region. The Brent crude oil price rose 4.9 percent Thursday, climbing to $64.40 per barrel from its lowest point of $61.37 per barrel the day before. The risks against the safe passage of crude tankers through the region jeopardize a portion of global oil supply. The Gulf of Aden, located east of the Bab-el Mandab strait, connects the Gulf to the Red Sea. The strait is the fourth biggest choke point in the world, and had 4.7 million barrels per day of oil transit in 2014, which was around 5 percent of the total oil supply in the world, the EIA says.

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