Oil prices: Brent oil edges up; heads for weekly loss

Oil prices: Brent Oil inched up on Friday but was heading for a weekly loss, pulled down by worries about a global economic slowdown, although OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against Venezuela provided crude with some support. Another factor that oil prices were high this week was a strong dollar.

International Brent crude futures had erased earlier losses by 1036 GMT, gaining 12 cents to %61.75 per barrel. On the week they set for a loss of around 1.5 percent.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude stood at $52.53 per barrel, down 11 cents and looking at a 5 percent weekly slump, their steepest this year.

“It seems that macro risk still prevails over constructive supply fundamentals in the oil market,” Harry Tchilinguirian, global head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas, told the Reuters Global Oil forum.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he did not plan to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping before a March 1 deadline set by the two countries to strike a trade deal.

“The oil demand side of the coin is facing a number of headwinds … Venezuela’s oil woes are largely priced in and there is no guarantee that the OPEC+ supply pact will be extended,” PVM analysts wrote.

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