Oil futures settled higher on Friday despite registering losses for the week, as traders expressed concern about OPEC’s compliance with the production cut, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, April West Texas Intermediate crude rose 72 cents, or 1.4%, to settle at $53.33 a barrel. For the week, WTI suffered a loss of nearly 1.2%.
On the London ICE Futures Exchange, May Brent crude, the global benchmark, tacked on 82 cents, or 1.5%, to end trading at $55.90 a barrel—ending about 0.7% lower for the week.
“Full compliance with production cuts are not showing up in lower exports for many of the OPEC countries,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. “While lower domestic consumption or drawing down of crude inventories may explain this away, something seems awry from our perspective, and optimism is somewhat misplaced.”
Meanwhile, natural gas prices inched up to finish about 1.4% higher for the week, according to Dow Jones data. The April natural gas futures contract ended at $2.827 per million British thermal units, up 2.3 cents, or 0.8%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.