NYMEX October crude futures settled $1.44 lower at $87.96/barrel Friday as uncertainty over eurozone debt issues led investors to lighten up positions ahead of the front-month contract's expiration early next week.
October heating oil settled 1.57 cents lower at $3.0089/gal and October RBOB settled 13 points higher at $2.7841/gal.
ICE November Brent settled 8 cents lower at $111.5/b.
Phil Flynn, senior analyst at PFGBest, said the oil complex remains focused on eurozone debt issues, as has been the case over the last few days, leading to choppy futures prices.
"On Thursday news that there was going to be an injection of liquidity into European banks led to oil getting demand happy and blowing out the WTI/Brent spread. Also the tightening up of North Sea production supported prices," Flynn said.
But on Friday, Flynn said the market returned to a "flight to quality" as investors moved into safe-haven assets like gold futures and demand destruction weighed on the oil complex.
The November Brent/WTI spread was a main focus of the session, settling at $23.33/b, after a previous $22.41/b on Thursday.
"The relative Brent strength and associated steepening curve backwardation continues to represent North Sea supply tightness that is still playing out in some cargo delays," said independent analyst Jim Ritterbusch.
"Meanwhile, [NYMEX crude] spent much of the day responding to a stronger dollar that was prioritized over a continued steady tone to the stock market."
Flynn added that with October crude coming off the board on Tuesday, "there was some spec money that got carried out by a last minute rollover ahead of the weekend."
The US Dollar Index on ICE was up about 37 points at 76.614 by the NYMEX settle, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index were marginally higher.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner held talks with European finance ministers Friday on the debt crisis, as Finland continued to object to a new bailout for Greece, according to an AFP report.
The EU is under pressure to end months of bickering over a second financial rescue plan for Greece after the world's main central banks joined forces to pump dollars to banks squeezed by fear of debt contagion.
The European Central Bank, in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank will offer three-month dollar loans to banks through the end of this year.
