ENERGY: Oil recovers to $57, third weekly gain

The benchmark Brent crude recorded its third weekly gain, trading on Friday at just below $57 a barrel, exactly half the price last June when oversupply by OPEC members and US shale gas output started pushing the oil price down.

Brent recovered from Wednesday’s 6% intra-day drop as markets gradually started to warm to the idea that sanctions on Iran would be eased, after an interim deal on nuclear inspections, but that Tehran’s oil output would not return to past levels, at least not until end-2015 or early-2016.
But the record level of U.S. stockpiles and continued output by other producers kept the rally under control.
Brent was up 23c in early Friday trading at $56.80 a barrel while the U.S. WTI was down 15c at $50.64.
Meanwhile, during a visit to China on Thursday, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that the OPEC producers’ cartel, accused of relentlessly allowing members to boost output in order to gain market share, would be able to coordinate itself when Tehran ups production by about 1 mln bpd later this year.
High output levels, primarily by OPEC members and dropping demand has kept oil prices pressed at less than half their levels last June. US crude inventories added to the glut when stockpiles were seen up 10 mln barrels this week to 482 mln, while the Saudi Kingdom, determined to flush the market with cheap crude and push shale gas producers out, announced its March output had peaked at 10.3 mln bpd.
Zanganeh said that OPEC members will probably discuss over-supply by members at the next oil ministers’ meeting June.