Oil set for third weekly rise despite Friday fall

[December 20, 2019]  By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices were set for a third straight weekly gain despite a Friday fall after easing U.S.-China trade tensions lifted business confidence and the outlook for global economic growth.

Brent <LCOc1> was down 28 cents at $66.26 a barrel by 1116 GMT, equivalent to a weekly rise of around 1.6%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude <CLc1> was down 29 cents at $60.89 per barrel, a gain of around 1.4% on the week.

Progress in the trade dispute between the world's two biggest oil consumers has raised expectations of higher energy demand next year.

China on Thursday announced a list of import tariff exemptions for six oil and chemical products from the United States, days after Washington and Beijing said an interim trade deal is set to be signed in January.

Most major economies have likely averted recession for now but growth will remain subdued in 2020, Reuters polls forecast.

"The energy sector as a whole looks set to end 2019 with a solid year-on-year gain. This is due solely to the oil market," Barbara Lambrecht, an analyst at Commerzbank, said.

Brent is 23% more expensive than it was at the start of the year. Oil prices fell almost 20% in 2018.

 Pumpjacks are seen during sunset at the Daqing oil field in Heilongjiang province, China August 22, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

UBS lifted its oil price forecast for 2020 but also expects the oil market to be oversupplied by 0.3 million barrels per day next year.

"Our end-of-quarter Brent price forecasts are $60 per barrel for 1Q20 and $62 per barrel, $64 per barrel, and $64 per barrel for the following three quarters," UBS analysts Giovanni Staunovo and Dominic Schnider said in a note.

UBS's previous forecast for the four quarters of 2020 were $58, $55, $58, $60 per barrel respectively.

A U.S. weekly drilling report by energy services firm Baker Hughes <BKR.N> is due on Friday. Analysts say an expected fall in U.S. drilling activity should support oil prices.

Meanwhile, oil sector workers in France could decide on Friday whether to halt production at refineries to scale up a protest.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, additional reporting by Jane Chung in Seoul; editing by Susan Fenton and Alexander Smith)

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