Investing.com - Crude prices held well above 1% gains in Asia on Friday after earlier sinking more than 2% after U.S. fired dozens of missiles into Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for May delivery spiked 1.51% to $52.48 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent gained 1.33% $55.62 a barrel. The missile strikes came shortly after President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida in talks expected to focus on North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.
Meanwhile, market participants turn attention to Baker Hughes rig count, due to be released on Friday at 13:00 EDT.
Overnight, crude futures settled higher on Thursday, as expectations that an OPEC-led cut would be extended beyond June offset bearish U.S. inventories data.
Crude futures settled higher for a third straight day, despite renewed concerns that a ramp up in U.S. crude production would dampened OPEC’s efforts to reduce supply, after U.S. crude inventories swelled to a record high on Wednesday.
A report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday, showed an unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories, which confounded expectations of a drop in inventories, as the U.S. approaches the ‘summer driving season’.
The summer driving season officially kicks off in April, when U.S. consumer demand for gasoline usually peaks during the summer months.
Investors, remained hopeful that OPEC would extend its current deal to cut production beyond June in an effort to curb the current glut in supply.
In November last year, OPEC and other producers, including Russia agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd).
Non-OPEC oil producers that joined the global deal to reduce output delivered only 64% of promised cuts in February, an industry source said March 20, which was far below the roughly 90% compliance with the deal from OPEC members.