Oil futures closed out Friday on a lower note but continued to show a third-straight weekly gain, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
July West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 15 cents, or 0.3%, to settle at $49.33 a barrel on Friday’s New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, prices finished up roughly 1.9% based on the most active contracts.
July Brent crude, the global benchmark, dropped 27 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $49.32 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Exchange. For the week, prices gained almost 1.2%. The July Brent monthly contract expires Tuesday.
Both WTI and Brent crude oil futures rose above $50 a barrel on Thursday for the first time this year.
“Oil prices have been boosted by a number of factors lately, including the unscheduled production outages, continued output decreases in the U.S. and strong demand for gasoline at the start of the driving season,” said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com and City Index.
Data from the Baker Hughes weekly rig count released on Friday revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for crude dropped by 2 to 316. The total U.S. rig count was unchanged at 404.
Meanwhile, July natural gas gained 1.8 cents or 0.8%, closing trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $2.169 per million British thermal units. Tracking the most active contracts for the week, prices were down over 1.7%.