Oil prices advanced on Friday after a week of volatile trading, but still hovering at bottom level in more than a year.
Analysts said without any changes on fundamentals, crude price volatility in the past week was likely triggered by U.S. stocks market that had been on a rollercoaster ride for more than a week.
Concerns over slowing global economic growth have dampened investor sentiment in riskier asset classes and pressured crude futures.
In addition, the global oil market is still grappling with rising stockpiles, despite a daily 1.2 million-barrel output cut deal between OPEC and its allies, which is set to come into force since January next year.
The potential effect of the production cut has been partly offset by a worrying forecast that the seven major U.S. shale basins' output was expected to hit 8.166 million barrels per day (bpd) in January 2019, with the biggest increase of 134,000 bpd since September.
The West Texas Intermediate for February delivery gained 0.72 U.S. dollar to settle at 45.33 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for February delivery increased 0.04 dollar to close at 52.20 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
Analysts said without any changes on fundamentals, crude price volatility in the past week was likely triggered by U.S. stocks market that had been on a rollercoaster ride for more than a week.
Concerns over slowing global economic growth have dampened investor sentiment in riskier asset classes and pressured crude futures.
In addition, the global oil market is still grappling with rising stockpiles, despite a daily 1.2 million-barrel output cut deal between OPEC and its allies, which is set to come into force since January next year.
The potential effect of the production cut has been partly offset by a worrying forecast that the seven major U.S. shale basins' output was expected to hit 8.166 million barrels per day (bpd) in January 2019, with the biggest increase of 134,000 bpd since September.
The West Texas Intermediate for February delivery gained 0.72 U.S. dollar to settle at 45.33 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for February delivery increased 0.04 dollar to close at 52.20 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
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