Oil futures settled lower on Friday, with the U.S. benchmark scoring its 10th straight week gain by a thread, as concerns over the global glut of crude supplies persisted ahead of a long holiday weekend. The dollar jumped after a stronger-than-expected reading on inflation, and the advancing buck weighed on dollar-denominated commodities such as oil.
July crude settled at $59.72 a barrel, down $1, or 1.7% on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract itself, which became the front-month after Tuesday’s close, fell 1.4% for the week, but tracking the most-active contracts, prices edged up by 0.05%—or 3 cents from the most-active June crude close of $59.69 a week ago. Prices based on the most-active contracts have been climbing since the week ended March 20. July Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $1.17, or 1.8%, to $65.37 a barrel, down 2.1% for the week.
The oil market is “trendless right now” as the “historic 2014 selloff and its recent seven-week countertrend rally continue to be consolidated amid the mixed fundamental news,” said analyst Tyler Richey in the latest 7:00’s Report. U.S. government data Wednesday showed that supplies fell last week, but production in the lower 48 states didn’t fall as some had expected. Analyst Tim Evans at Citi Futures said in a report that the oil market is showing some confidence that the market will rebalance as demand grows and U.S. shale-oil production declines.”
But stronger demand and weaker U.S. oil production aren’t enough to tighten the market fast enough, and materially stronger prices must entail a drop in OPEC supply, which doesn’t appear to be happening, he said. “We continue to see the market’s lack of focus on the level of OPEC oversupply in the market, including the lack of apparent profit-taking ahead of a June 5 OPEC summit now just two weeks away, as a dangerous condition,” Evans added.