Oil futures managed to hold on to a slight gain on Friday, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, October West Texas Intermediate crude rose 31 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $47.64 a barrel. For the week, prices lost about 3% following gains over the last three weeks.
On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, October Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 25 cents, or 0.5%, to end trading at $49.92 a barrel.
Baker Hughes said Friday that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil was unchanged at 406 in the latest week, implying a halt to the recovery in activity following eight straight weeks of rig increases.
Meanwhile, September natural gas rose 2.5 cents, or 0.9%, to settle at $2.871 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The current contract expires at Monday’s price settlement.