Oil is heading to record weekly gains, and uncertainty about demand limits the rise

Oil prices rose slightly on Friday, with crude contracts heading towards recording weekly gains as recession fears eased, but uncertainty regarding the outlook for demand limited the gains.

By 0736 GMT, Brent crude futures rose 23 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $99.83 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down three cents at $94.37 a barrel.

Brent crude is heading for a rise of more than three percent during the week, compensating for some losses last week, when it plunged 14 percent in the largest weekly loss since April 2020, amid fears that an increase in inflation and raising interest rates will harm economic growth and fuel demand.

But uncertainty limited price gains as the market absorbed the opposing views of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the International Energy Agency on the demand outlook.

On Thursday, OPEC cut its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2022 by 260,000 barrels per day. It now expects demand to increase by 3.1 million barrels per day this year.

This contrasts with the vision of the International Energy Agency, which raised its forecast for demand growth to 2.1 million barrels per day due to the shift to oil instead of gas to generate electricity as a result of high international gas prices.