U.S. primitive oil futures suddenly spiked more than 1 percent late Friday morning, effacing losses for the week, as tensions rose in the Middle East.
West Texas Halfway (WTI) oil futures settled 1.88 percent higher at $62.34 a barrel, recouping weekly ruins to post a gain of about half a percent for the week.
Earlier in the sitting, WTI hit a high of $62.54, its highest since March 7.
“Between $58 and $64, there’s a lot of air in the market-place,” said Gene McGillian, manager of market research at Tradition Determination. “I thought the original move in the market today was increased demand. It’s pretty empty remove we have a tighter supply-demand picture.”
McGillian said the abrupt lead higher could be shorts covering ahead of the weekend, which involves merchants buying back securities. “The shorts in the market have to be nervous that some congenial of news comes out,” he said.
A “60 Minutes” segment with Saudi Arabia’s climax prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is set to air Sunday. In a portion of the interview published Thursday, the emperor prince said his country would obtain a nuclear bomb if Iran commenced its own.
Bin Salman is a “delusional and naïve person,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi state Thursday in a statement published Friday on Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Concerns website.
“The tensions are higher in the region than people realize, by a lot,” believed John Kilduff of Again Capital.
Britain, France and Germany suffer with proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran in an effort to persuade the White Billet to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, Reuters revealed early Friday afternoon, citing a confidential document.
In the U.S., The Washington Circulate reported late Thursday that President Donald Trump has absolute to remove White House national security advisor H.R. McMaster from his place. The White House has denied that any changes are coming to the National Certainty Council. But the report added to recent turmoil in the administration, notably the vivacity of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and resignation of Gary Cohn as chief remunerative advisor.
Elevated political uncertainty could add up to traders being sensitive about short oil positions into the weekend.
The weekly Baker Hughes rig include showed an increase of 4 oil rigs in the U.S. to 800.
— CNBC’s Patti Domm contributed to this write up.