New York: Brent oil posted its first weekly loss in a month on Friday as the market fretted again about global oversupply while U.S. crude rose for an eighth straight week, helped by jobs growth data and the first storm of the hurricane season forming.
Crude prices had rallied with little pause over the past month, helped by a weaker dollar and bets that better demand in the near term will ease the supply glut.
But on Thursday, prices fell as much as 3 percent, their most since early April, after hitting 2015 highs. Oil was also pressured by a stronger dollar and physical oil markets showing tens millions of West African, Azeri and North Sea crude barrels without buyers.
In Friday`s session, Brent, the more globally-used benchmark for oil, settled down 15 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $65.39 a barrel. It down 1.6 percent on the week. Brent had risen previously in four consecutive weeks, gaining nearly 20 percent.
U.S. crude rose 45 cents, or 0.8 percent, for the session to settle at $59.39 a barrel. It climbed 0.4 percent on the week, extending gains for an eighth straight week that had put the market up 32 percent.
Brent slipped after early support from record high crude imports in China in April. Traders cautioned that low prices could encourage China to stockpile, adding to global inventories.
Trading also turned choppy on the realization that last week`s drawdown in U.S. inventories was at the expense of builds in gasoline and distillates.
"Products inventories were up, so it looks like the crude is just being turned into products" without corresponding demand, said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York.
But after Friday`s early declines, U.S. crude rose on higher nonfarm payrolls in April.
Also supportive to U.S. crude was news that Ana, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season which traditionally begins June 1, had formed off the coast of South Carolina. While it posed no immediate threat to U.S. energy infrastructure, the storm heralded the approach of hurricane season, brokers said.
U.S. crude was also helped by data from oil services firm Baker Hughes showing this week`s drop in the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States being the smallest since the week ended April 3.
