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NYMEX Crude $ 47.75 DN $.4100
NY Harbor ULSD $1.4900 UP $.0112
NYMEX Gasoline $1.6356 UP $.0017

NEWS
Oil futures on Friday finished the week with a more than 3% gain, with recent production outages feeding expectations for a decline in the global glut of crude supplies. Prices for the session, however, settled lower, pressured by news that exports from an eastern port in Libya have resumed and data showing that the weekly U.S. oil-rigs count was unchanged, after eight straight weeks of declines.

The June contract for West Texas Intermediate crude fell 41 cents, or 0.9%, to settle at $47.75 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract, which expired at the settlement, gained 3.3% for the week. The July contract which is now the most-active and front-month contract, finished the day at $48.41, down 26 cents, or 0.5%. July Brent crude the global oil benchmark, shed 9 cents, or 0.2%, to $48.72 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange, for a weekly gain of about 2%.

News reports said that exports from the eastern port of Marsa al-Hariga in Libya have resumed. The Libyan outage began more than two weeks ago with a dispute between two groups fighting for control of the country. Prices had seen gains early Friday but “lost momentum after it was reported that oil exports resumed from [Libya’s] blocked eastern port,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. Adding further pressure to prices, data from Baker Hughes Fridayshowed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for crude was unchanged at 318 after falling over the last eight weeks in a row. The total U.S. rig count fell by 2 to 404. The figures are a rough proxy for activity in the industry.

Prices now at levels that make drilling economical for some firms so the rig count might start rising soon, analysts have said. But Flynn said “shale producers are broke or bleeding cash, so it is unlikely that we will see a big rebound” in the oil-rig count. For the week, however, “signs of strong demand and risks to supply around the globe are giving the [oil] bulls more of an upper hand,” he said. The fires in Canada’s oil-rich Alberta province have affected as much as 1.4 million barrels a day of production, estimates Jason Gammel, analyst at Jefferies. Meanwhile, attacks in Nigeria are taking out nearly half a million barrels a day, he said.

Earlier this week, oil prices retreated as the dollar rallied following indications that the U.S. Federal Reserve could launch another round of rate increases at its next meeting in June. That strengthened the U.S. dollar which tends to push oil prices lower by making the dollar-denominated commodity more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Demand for crude products in the U.S., however, appears to be very strong, as evidenced by sharp draws in gasoline and distillate stocks last week, said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com and City Index. That could boost demand for crude oil.