2020.11.2719:21:00UTC+00Oil Futures Settle Modestly Lower For The Day, But Gain About 8% In Week

Crude oil futures settled lower for the session on Friday, but still managed to post a strong weekly gain.

Rising optimism about coronavirus vaccine raised hopes global energy demand will pick up significantly and lifted crude oil prices in recent sessions.

Expectations that OPEC and its allies will delay relaxing their output cuts contributed as well to oil's strong uptick this month.

Pfizer and Moderna came up with upbeat news about the Covid-19 vaccines being developed by them to be 94.5% and 95%, effective in preventing the virus infection.

AstraZeneca too reported encouraging results of their vaccine trials, but then some questions have been raised about the efficacy of the vaccine being developed by the company along with Oxfor University.

AstraZeneca's Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg the British pharmaceutical giant is likely to run a new global trial of the vaccine candidate

West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.18 or about 0.4% at $45.53 a barrel. WTI crude oil futures gained about 8% in the week, posting gains for a fourth straight week.

Brent crude futures settled with a gain of $0.45 or 0.9% at $48.25 a barrel.

OPEC+ ministers are scheduled to meet on Monday. It is widely expected that the group will delay an output increase by three months. Informal talks will be held on Saturday prior to the meetings scheduled for next week.