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Brent futures for May were up 83 cents, or 1.01%, at $82.74 a
barrel by 1050 GMT. The April Brent futures contract expired on
Feb. 29 at $83.62 a barrel.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for April rose 81 cents, or
1.04%, to $79.07 a barrel.
Both contracts traded more than $1 a barrel higher at their
intra-day peaks.
WTI is on track for a 3.4% increase this week, while following
the switch in contract months Brent is around 1.4% higher than
last week's settlement price.
Increasing possibilities of Saudi-led OPEC+ continuing with its
supply cuts beyond the first quarter, and potentially until the
end of 2024, will likely keep oil prices above $80 a barrel,
said DBS Bank energy sector team lead Suvro Sarkar.
A decision on extending OPEC+ cuts is expected in the first week
of March, sources have said, with individual countries expected
to announce their decisions.
A Reuters survey showed the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries pumped 26.42 million barrels per day (bpd)
in February, up 90,000 bpd from January.
Strong expectations of Saudi Arabia keeping term prices of crude
it sells to Asian customers little changed in April from March
levels also underpinned the market on Friday.
On the demand side, Chinese manufacturing activity shrank for
the fifth straight month in February, an official survey showed.
Euro zone inflation fell in February according to Eurostat, but
both the headline figure and core inflation, which strips out
volatile food and fuel prices, just missed analysts'
expectations.
But supporting prices, U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE)
index showed January inflation in line with economists'
expectations on Thursday, reinforcing market bets for a June
interest rate cut.
"The process of disinflation is reassuringly under way,
therefore smart money is currently on a June rate cut," PVM
analyst Tamas Varga said in a note on Friday.
(Reporting by Robert Harvey in London, Laura Sanicola and Trixie
Yap in Singapore; Editing by Jan Harvey)
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