Oil futures prices on Friday hovered near a three-month peak, amid signs that OPEC is adhering to its pledge to limit production.
Prices took to split paths on Thursday, with U.S. prices extending gains from a weekly drop in domestic crude supplies and global benchmark prices lower on weaker Chinese economic data, which fed concerns over a demand slowdown. That action leaves U.S. crude marginally higher on the week but Brent headed for a nearly 1% drop for the five-day stretch.
Both benchmarks, however, finished February higher, up a second consecutive month.
Early Friday, April West Texas Intermediate crude CLJ9, -0.42% rose 14 cents, or 0.2%, to $57.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract is set to gain about 0.2% for the week. Based on the front-month contracts, prices climbed 6.4% for the month of February, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Global benchmark May Brent LCOK9, -0.44% traded at $66.37, up 7 cents, or 0.1%, on ICE Futures Europe. The contract is down nearly 1% for the week. Front-month prices rose 6.7% for February.
Consulting firm JBC Energy said Thursday that crude output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries declined by 550,000 barrels a day in February, bringing the oil cartel’s total drop in output since October to 2.2 million barrels a day. That figure is much higher than the 800,000 barrels a day OPEC agreed to cut from October levels.
OPEC, led on a de facto basis by Saudi Arabia, and 10 producers outside the cartel, led by Russia, agreed in December to collectively hold back output by 1.2 million barrels a day for the first half of this year.
What’s more, the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday reported that U.S. crude supplies unexpectedly dropped by 8.6 million barrels. The decline followed five straight weeks of increases and surprised most market forecasters, who expected an increase in stockpiles. Weekly data more broadly has shown that U.S. crude output has surged above a record 12 million barrels a day. The government expects crude output to average 12.4 million barrels a day this year.
Read: What oil-tanker rates can tell readers about OPEC members’ compliance with cuts
April natural gas NGJ19, +0.57% fell 0.04% at $2.811 per million British thermal units after ending February only slightly lower. Still, prices had plunged by 39% over the last three months, marking the largest three-month percentage decline since Sept. 2008, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The EIA reported Thursday that domestic supplies of natural gas fell by 166 billion cubic feet for the week ended Feb. 22. That was a bit less than the 171 billion cubic foot decline forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts.
Christopher Alessi contributed to this article
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