By Zhang Mengying
Investing.com – Oil was up on Friday morning in Asia amid uncertainty about how aggressively the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike interest rates to bring down inflation.
Brent oil futures rose 0.91% to $100.00 by 11:25 PM ET 0325 GMT) and crude oil WTI futures jumped 0.58% to $96.34. The rate hike uncertainty, along with weak economic data sent both benchmark contracts below the Feb. 23 close on Thursday, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
In the latest Fed comments, Governor Christopher Waller supported raising rates by 75 basis points this month, though he said he could go bigger if warranted by the data.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard echoed some of those comments, saying he favored hiking by the same amount.
U.S. President Joe Biden will fly to Saudi Arabia, where he will attend a summit of Gulf allies and call for them to add more oil output.
However, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members is running low spare capacity, with most of them pumping at maximum capacity. It is unclear how much extra Saudi Arabia can meet the additional production quickly.