Oil set for weekly gain ahead of U.S.-China trade talks
Oil prices rose on Friday, poised for a weekly gain as trade tensions between top oil consumers China and the United States showed signs of easing and Britain announced a "breakthrough" U.S. trade deal.
Brent crude firmed by 53 cents, or 0.84%, to $63.37 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 51 cents, or 0.85%, at $60.42. On the week, both contracts were up more than 3%.
Hopes that the trade war between the U.S. and China is cooling had helped Brent futures to jump by 3% on Thursday, said PVM analyst John Evans.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet China's top economic official Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland on May 10 to work towards resolving trade disputes that have threatened oil demand.
"If the two set a date to start formal trade negotiations and agree to ratchet down their current steep tariffs against each other while talks carry on, markets will get a breather and crude could stack on another $2 to $3 per barrel," said Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights.
Chinese exports rose faster than expected in April while imports narrowed their decline, customs data showed on Friday, giving Beijing some relief ahead of tariff talks.
The country's crude oil imports in April dipped from the previous month but were up 7.5% year on year, buoyed by stockpiling by state refiners during maintenance outages.
Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that Britain had agreed to lower tariffs on U.S. imports.
Elsewhere, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known collectively as OPEC+, plan to increase output, maintaining pressure on oil prices. A Reuters survey found that OPEC oil output edged lower in April as production declines in Libya, Venezuela and Iraq outweighed a scheduled increase in output.
Meanwhile, tighter U.S. sanctions on Iran could restrict supply and push prices higher. The U.S. this week imposed sanctions on a third small Chinese refinery for buying Iranian oil.
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