Investing.com – Crude futures settled higher on Friday, on the back of unconfirmed reports of a shutdown of one of the largest oil refineries in the U.S., easing investor concerns about the glut in supply.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for September delivery rose 3% to settle at $48.51 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent added 3.59% to trade at $52.87 a barrel.
Crude oil recovered from session lows, as traders piled into oil futures, after reports surfaced that a unit at Exxon Mobil’s Baytown, Texas refinery has been shut down.
The reports surfaced ahead of an update from oilfield services firm Baker Hughes on Friday, showing its weekly count of oil rigs operating in the United States last week fell by five rigs to a total of 763.
The weekly rig count is an important barometer for the drilling industry and serves as a proxy for oil production and oil services demand.
The dip in U.S. oil rigs eased investor concerns that rising U.S. production could hamper Opec’s ability to stem the glut in supplies, which has pressured prices for more than three-years.
Total crude-oil production rose to 9.502m barrels per day, an uptick of 79,000 barrels a day compared to last week, the EIA said on Wednesday. That was the highest weekly output figure since mid-July 2015.
In May, Opec and non-Opec members agreed to extend production cuts for a period of nine months until March, but stuck to production cuts of 1.8 million bpd agreed in November last year.