Oil futures finished slightly higher on Friday, as traders looked for clues as to whether OPEC members will be able to complete a deal later this month to curb production levels, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
December West Texas Intermediate crude rose 27 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $45.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, prices for the contract ended about 5.3% higher than a week ago. The current contract expires at the end of Monday’s session.
January Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, added 37 cents, or 0.8%, to $46.86 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Exchange. Prices for the global oil benchmark gained 4.7% for the week, after four straight weekly declines.
The impact of any agreement between OPEC members to lower production could also be offset by surging output from non-OPEC producers, such as Russia, where production hit a post-Soviet era high of 11.2 million barrels a day in October.
Meanwhile, natural gas futures soared to a weekly gain of nearly 9% as the first hints of a winter chill spurred traders.
Back on the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas prices rallied, with the December contract up 14 cents, or 5.2%, to end at $2.843 per million British thermal units, forging a weekly gain of about 8.6%.