Oil prices jumped two dollars on Friday, after the United States tightened the sanctions program on Russian crude exports, raising concerns about supplies in an already scarce market, and global inventories are expected to decline during the fourth quarter of the year.
Brent crude futures rose 1.96 dollars, or 2.28 percent, to 87.96 dollars a barrel by 0819 GMT.
US West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.98 dollars, or 2.39 percent, to 84.89 dollars a barrel.
Despite the fluctuations during the week in both benchmarks, Brent is heading for weekly gains of about four, while WTI is heading up by more than 2.5 percent for the week, after both contracts rose on Monday.
The rise was driven by the possibility of disruption of exports from the Middle East after the weekend attack by the Palestinian Hamas movement on Israel, which threatened a possible wider conflict.
Kelvin Wong, senior market analyst at Oanda in Singapore, told Reuters: “the premium associated with geopolitical risks remains… It is likely to support oil prices in the short term, ” he said.
He said the market is more worried about shrinking supplies from the Middle East and Russia.
