London: Reuters reports that on Friday, the price of global benchmark Brent crude remained above $81 a barrel, with bullish sentiment regarding US demand being aided by supply disruption in Libya and Nigeria.
Both the Brent and US West Texas Intermediate contracts had increased for three straight sessions and were on track to post gains for three straight weeks for the first time since April in early Asian trading on Friday.
A local tribe's protest against the kidnapping of a former minister led to the closure of some oilfields in Libya on Thursday.
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Separately, Shell halted loadings of Forcados crude oil from Nigeria due to a possible leak at a terminal.
According to PVM analyst Tamas Varga, the disruption in Libya is estimated to be stopping 370,000 barrels per day, while the loss from the outage in Nigeria is estimated to be 225,000 bpd.
Any additional outages will drive the price of oil to levels that not even the most ardent bull would have predicted for the second half of the year because the "market is in thrall to a 'tightening' narrative," added Varga.
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Russian oil exports have also significantly decreased, and if this pattern continued the following week, the price would likely rise even higher, said Commerzbank analysts. This is especially true given that Russian oil exports are expected to decline by 500,000 bpd in August.
Brent was trading at $81.36 per barrel and WTI was at $76.89 as of 1:13 p.m. Saudi Arabian time.
The International Energy Agency and Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' reports on Thursday provided additional price support by projecting that, despite broader macroeconomic headwinds, oil demand will increase in the second half of the year, particularly in China.
In a research note published on Friday, National Australia Bank stated that it anticipated the OPEC forecast, if accurate, "to deliver oil prices well above $100 a barrel," adding that the strengthening Australian dollar continued to drive up commodity prices.
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Markets are now hopeful that the Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its fastest monetary policy tightening campaign since the 1980s due to a cooling in US inflation.
The world's two largest oil exporters, Saudi Arabia and Russia, concurred this month to extend oil production cuts that have been in place since November of last year, further supporting crude prices.