US crude oil rose on Friday as data showed strong jobs growth in the United States and Brent followed suit as investors cast doubt on reports Libya's oil ports were about to reopen. Both benchmarks retraced earlier gains as the US equities markets fell later in the trading session after earlier hitting intraday record highs following the March US non-farm payrolls report showing 192,000 jobs were added in March.
The figure was seen to confirm that the economic weakness of January and February was due to bad weather. Expectations had been building that an eight-month blockage of Libya's oil export ports would end after rebels and the government said they were close to an agreement. The Libyan government said it had seen evidence of "good intentions" at indirect talks with eastern rebels that could lead to renewed exports.
Previous reports of the reopening of ports have proven false and investors suspect there will again be no breakthrough. "In the oil market it is Libya that is pulling the strings," said David Hufton, managing director of London brokerage PVM Oil Associates. "High hopes of an imminent settlement with rebels in the east of the country have been punctured."
May Brent crude rose 57 cents to settle at $106.72 a barrel, down 1.3 percent for the week. US crude for May gained 85 cents to settle at $101.14 a barrel, after earlier notching a high of $101.63. Front-month US crude fell 0.6 cents on the week, its first weekly loss in three weeks. The spread between Brent and US crude, also known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, had narrowed to as low as $4.81 by mid-week as Brent lost more than $3 on hopes that Libyan oil would soon be back online. It widened to nearly $6 on Thursday before narrowing again on Friday to settle at $5.58.
"The spread's in today by about 50 cents, which suggests that concerns about Libyan oil making its way back onto the world market place has kind of run its course, and the focus is back on Cushing oil flowing down to the Gulf Coast," said Gene McGillian, an analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. The restart of Libya's eastern oil ports could release about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, bumping up the Opec producer's output from around 150,000 bpd but still far from the 1.4 million bpd it produced last July.
Investors remained cautious after a breakdown in agreements between the Libyan government and rebels earlier this year. Geopolitical risk buoyed oil markets ahead of the weekend, despite a falling US equities market, analysts said, citing the ongoing tensions in Libya and between Russia and Ukraine. Britain urged its European Union partners on Friday to press ahead with preparing tough economic sanctions against Russia, saying large numbers of Russian forces remained on Ukraine's eastern border and there had been only a "token" withdrawal.
"It's hard to get too bearish going into the weekend with so many unknowns - Russia, Ukraine, Libya," said Phil Flynn, an analyst with the Price Futures Group in Chicago, Illinois. "People don't want to be short in case something hits the fan over the weekend, which it very well could, given all the saber-rattling that's going on."