15.10.202110:10:00UTC+00Oil Rises Amid Deepening Supply Deficit

Oil prices rose on Friday and were on track to post their eighth consecutive weekly gain on forecasts of a supply deficit over the next few months.

Benchmark Brent crude futures jumped 72 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $84.75 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 69 cents, or 0.9 percent, at $82.00 a barrel.

Soaring natural-gas and coal prices are pressuring power-generation companies and manufacturers to switch to using oil, a trend that could add half a million barrels a day to global demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday in its monthly report.

The IEA said in its latest Oil Market Report that it expects oil demand to rise by 5.5 million barrels per day to 96.3 million barrels per day in 2021, and by 3.3 million b/d to 99.6 million b/d in 2022, slightly above pre-Covid levels.

Oil prices also found support after Saudi Arabia dismissed calls for additional OPEC+ production increases, saying the group's unwinding of production cuts was protecting the oil market from the wild price swings seen in the natural gas and coal markets.

Investors shrugged off a higher than expected gain in U.S. crude stocks last week as refinery crude runs fell.