US crude oil futures are closing in on $50 for the first time since the end of February. Oil prices settled the trading week higher on growing optimism over the vaccine rollout and fiscal stimulus, with investors shrugging off another week of an increase in the Baker Hughes crude oil rig count.
January West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures surged $0.60, or 1.24%, to $48.96 per barrel at 19:19 GMT on Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. US crude prices will record a weekly gain of about 5%, reducing their year-to-date loss to below 20%.
Brent, the international benchmark for oil prices, already climbed above $50 last week. February Brent crude futures slipped $0.09, or 0.17%, to $52.17 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. Despite the tepid drop, Brent prices will finish the trading week with a 4% gain, lowering their 2020 decline to below 21%.
Both contracts will log their seventh consecutive weekly boost.
The Baker Hughes crude oil rig count came in at 263 in the week ending December 18, up from 258 in the previous week. This represents the tenth straight weekly bump in the number of oil and gas rigs in the US.
The total rig count reached 346, up from 338 a week ago.
Energy prices are rising on the global rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. The US, Canada, and Europe have been rolling out their coronavirus inoculations, and early projections anticipate at least half of countries’ populations will be vaccinated by the summer. This is triggering optimism of demand slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Washington is on the cusp of approving a $908 billion stimulus and relief package that extends unemployment benefits, doles out stimulus checks, and supports struggling businesses. This, according to market observers, could keep the global economy afloat until conditions normalize.
A new report from the Organization of the Petroleum Countries (OPEC) suggested lower crude demand, reducing the odds that the cartel and its allies, OPEC+, will pull the trigger on a substantial increase to global supply during its next meeting in January.
In other energy commodities, January natural gas futures advanced $0.077, or 2.92%, to $2.713 per million British thermal units (btu). January gasoline futures edged up $0.0047, or 0.34%, to $1.3928 a gallon. January heating oil futures rose $0.0132, or 0.88%, to $1.5084 per gallon.