Oil gains on weak dollar

new york — Oil prices edged up on Friday as a rebound in the global equities market and a weak dollar supported crude’s recovery from last week’s slide.

Global stocks rallied for a sixth straight session to post their best week in more than two years. The dollar rose on the day but remained on track to post its biggest weekly loss in nine months. A weaker dollar can boost oil and other dollardenominated commodities.

“I don’t want to underestimate what the dollar is doing. The weaker dollar has been extremely supportive to crude,” said Bill Baruch, president and founder of Blue Line Futures.

Brent crude futures settled 51 cents, or 0.8 per cent, higher at $64.84 per barrel, after touching eight-day highs. The global benchmark ended the week up more than 3 per cent, partially recovering from a decline of more than 8 per cent last week.

US West Texas Intermediate crude rose 34 cents, or 0.6 per cent, to $61.68. WTI gained 4 per cent last week after losing nearly 10 per cent the week before. Money managers slashed their bullish wagers on ICE Brent crude oil futures by the most in nearly eight months in the week to February 13.

Speculators also cut net long US crude futures and options positions in the week to February 13 by the most since late August, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said.

“After such a sharp drop that we saw prior to Wednesday, perhaps a recovery was due,” said Tony Headrick, an analyst at CHS Hedging.

“However, with the number of US oil rigs increasing by seven, that’s a point that should cap an extreme advance in prices,” Headrick said. The US oil rig count rose seven to 798, its highest in three years. — Reuters