Crude oil settled slightly higher on Friday to eke out a weekly gain despite a jump in the U.S. active rig count, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
April West Texas Intermediate crude gained 3 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $48.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
May Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 2 cents to end trading at $51.76 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
For the week, WTI was up nearly 0.6% and Brent crude ended 0.8% higher.
On Friday, data from Baker Hughes revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil continued the streak of increases that began in mid-January, but the report came on the heels of the first weekly fall for domestic crude stockpiles in 10 weeks, according to the Bloomberg MarketWatch report.
April natural gas settled at $2.948 per million British thermal units, up 4.6 cents, or 1.6% on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, natural gas had a loss of 2%.
