Investing.com – Crude futures settled higher on Friday, after a Nigerian oil pipeline leak offset fears that excess Nigerian crude would add to the uptick in global production but gains were limited as investors braced for a rise in Libyan output while the number of active U.S. drilling rigs rose.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for July delivery rose 19 cents to settle at $45.83 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent added 30 cents to trade at $48.16 a barrel.
Oil prices rose as the Shell Development Company of Nigeria declared force majeure on Nigerian Bonny light crude oil after someone drilled a hole into the Trans Niger Pipeline, causing a leak but gains were offset by expectations that Libya's Sharara oilfield would return to normal production.
National Oil Corp said on Friday, Libya's 270,000-bpd Sharara oilfield has reopened after a workers' protest and should return to normal production within three days.
The expected uptick in Libyan oil production, added to earlier concerns of a rise in global output as Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday, lifted force majeure on exports of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil, bringing all of the West African country’s oil exports fully online for the first time in 16 months.
Meanwhile in the U.S., oilfield services firm Barker Hughes reported its weekly U.S. rig count rose by 8 to 741.
Crude futures have struggled to pare losses sustained earlier in the week, after U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly swelled while tensions in the Middle East weighed on sentiment.
The Energy Information Administration on Wednesday said inventories of U.S. crude rose by roughly 3.3m barrels in the week ended May 26, confounding expectations of draw of around 3.5m barrels.
Meanwhile, demand for refined products fell, as stockpiles of gasoline, one of the products crude is refined into, rose back above 2016 levels and well above their five-year average.