TOKYO
(Reuters) - Oil prices were mixed on Friday, but both Brent and U.S. crude were
set to chalk up another weekly gain as investors bet that efforts to cut a
global
glut are working and that the demand outlook is improving.
U.S. crude
CLc1 was down 4 cents at $51.52 a barrel at 0450 GMT, having spent much of the
session slightly higher. The contract is heading for a fourth consecutively
weekly gain and is on track for a 9 percent advance this month.
Brent LCOc1
rose 14 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $57.55 a barrel, heading for a fifth weekly
climb and a 10 percent gain for September.
The price
gains, most of them in the last two-and-a-half weeks, have come as traders
anticipated renewed demand from U.S. refiners that were resuming operations
after shutdowns due to Hurricane Harvey.
Major world
oil producers outside the United States have also indicated they will stick
with output cuts to limit supply.
They are
getting support from Turkey’s threats to cut off a pipeline from the Kurdish
region of Iraq after a referendum where Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of
independence.
“(There is)
an increasingly positive view from the supply side, with potential Kurdish
production disruption, and a plethora of energy agencies suggesting global
demand is increasing,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA in
Singapore.
Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan said this week he could use force to prevent the
formation of an independent Kurdish state and might close the oil “tap”.
The Kurdish
region exports about 500,000 barrels a day through a pipeline that runs through
Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea.
Turkey
promised on Thursday to deal only with the Iraqi government on crude, the
office of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.
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