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The
most actively traded Brent futures, for June delivery, were up
$1.05 or 1.3% at $79.65 a barrel by 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 GMT).
Brent futures for May delivery, which will expire upon
settlement later on Friday, rose 44 cents or 0.6% to $79.71 a
barrel.
West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) for May delivery rose $1.11,
or 1.5%, to $75.48 a barrel, having gained about 8% so far this
week.
Data on Friday showed the U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditure
(PCE) index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge,
rose 0.3% in February on a monthly basis, compared with a 0.6%
rise in January and an expectation of a 0.4% rise in a Reuters
poll.
Signs inflation is slowing tend to support oil prices as this
could point to less aggressive interest rate hikes from the Fed,
lifting investor demand for risk assets like commodities and
equities.
Oil prices were also buoyed after producers shut in or reduced
output at several oilfields in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan
region of northern Iraq following a halt to the northern export
pipeline.
With prices recovering from recent lows, the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia are
likely to stick to their existing output deal at a meeting on
Monday, sources said.
OPEC pumped 28.90 million barrels per day (bpd) this month, a
Reuters survey found, down 70,000 bpd from February. Output is
down more than 700,000 bpd from September.
If current levels hold, oil prices will record their second
straight week of gains, but Brent and WTI were also set to
record monthly declines of 5% and 2% respectively, their
steepest since November.
The benchmarks hit their lowest since 2021 on March 20 in the
wake of large bank failures, and while they have recouped some
of the losses since then, they remain well below the levels at
which they were trading at the start of March.
"The prolonged economic scarring of the last month will likely
slow the economy, if not cause a recession, and lower interest
rate expectations are not enough to support oil prices in the
short term," said Craig Erlam, senior markets analyst at OANDA.
(Reporting by Shariq Khan; Additional reporting by Shadia
Nasralla, Sudarshan Varadhan and Andrew Hayley; Editing by
Marguerita Choy and Jan Harvey)
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