Crude oil futures rebounded on Friday after Thursday’s big drop, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, June West Texas Intermediate crude rose 70 cents, or 1.5%, to settle at $46.22 a barrel. For the week, prices were nearly 6.3% lower after losing 4.8% on Thursday.
On the London ICE Futures Exchange, July Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 72 cents, or 1.5%, to end trading at $49.10 a barrel. For the week, Brent crude was down by nearly 5.6% after losing 4.8% as well on Thursday.
WTI and Brent crude suffered their lowest settlements since late November, when OPEC agreed to a production cut for six months.
“Under the current output cut, the shale oil producers pumped more oil and this hasn’t helped the oil glut,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets. “U.S. production has increased consistently for eleven weeks, which marked the longest run of gains since 2012.”
OPEC plans to decide on a possible extension of the output cuts at its meeting on May 25.
Meanwhile, June natural gas added 2.5% to $3.266 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, natural gas futures declined by 0.3%.