NYMEX April crude settled 29 cents higher at $93.13/barrel Friday after a largely rangebound trading session, bouncing back slightly after a two-day selloff.
"We're pretty unchanged with the market attempting to stabilize after the past couple days of blood-letting," Tradition Energy commodities analyst Gene McGillian said, referring to the selloff that saw April NYMEX shed more than 4% of its value at midweek.
ICE Brent also closed stronger, boosted during overnight trading by favorable consumer and business confidence data out of Germany, analysts said, even as data from German statistics agency Destatis confirmed Q4's surprise 0.6% contraction in GDP.
ICE April Brent settled 57 cents higher at $114.10/b.
"With the equity markets focused more on German business confidence than downward revisions to euro zone economic forecasts, the petroleum markets are seeing at least a limited bounce after the Wednesday-Thursday drop," Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans said in a note.
Equities markets turned broadly positive overnight with European markets posting the heaviest gains after sharp declines posted earlier in the week. US equities also gained Friday.
The NYMEX RBOB contract continued to find support following an unexpectedly large draw in US gasoline inventories, analysts said, with markets growing increasingly conscious of supply constraints heading in to the peak-demand summer season.
"RBOB prices over the past two months have climbed nearly 50 cents on concerns that high levels of refinery maintenance will curtail supplies," McGillian said. "On top of that, with the closure of Hess' [70,000 b/d Port Reading, New Jersey] refinery, supplies could be limited as demand picks up."
McGillian added that demand for the road fuel has yet to show evidence of increasing significantly.
NYMEX March RBOB settled 4.31 cents higher at $3.0796/gal, while the April contract settled up 3.18 cents at $3.2658/gal.
Data from the US Energy Information Administration Thursday showed a nearly 2.9-million-barrel decline in US gasoline stocks for the week ended February 15.
Gains in distillates were less pronounced Friday. NYMEX March heating oil settled up 85 points at $3.1042/gal, while ICE March gasoil was unchanged at $981.50/mt
