Oil rises 2% as no immediate Saudi output hike expected

Oil surged 2.5% on Friday after a US official said that an immediate Saudi oil output boost was not expected, and as investors question whether OPEC has the room to significantly ramp up crude production.

The comment during US President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom comes at a time when spare capacity at members of OPEC is running low.

Part of the support is that everybody and their brother who digs down into the Saudi situation see that they don’t have a lot of capacity left. Brent crude futures settled at $101.16 a barrel, rising $2.06, or 2.1%, while WTI crude settled at $97.59 a barrel, gaining $1.81, or 1.9%.

Both benchmarks saw their biggest weekly percentage drops in about a month, largely on fears earlier in the week that a nearing recession would chop away at demand. Brent lost 5.5% in its third weekly drop, while WTI was down 6.9% in its second weekly decline.