Escalating Middle East tensions drove up oil prices on Friday, setting prices up for a solid gain for the week. Concerns that Israel is close to launching a ground invasion of Gaza, after its military ordered more than a million people in the territory to flee south, have raised the risk of disruptions to oil supplies in the Middle East region.
Price action
West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery
CL00,
+4.46%
CL.1,
+4.46%
CLX23,
+4.46%
climbed $3.02, or 3.6%, to $85.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices for the front-month contract traded around 3.8% higher for the week, FactSet data show.
December Brent crude
BRN00,
+4.34%,
the global benchmark, jumped $3.41, or 4%, to $89.41 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, poised for a weekly rise of around 5.7%.
November gasoline
RBX23,
+4.06%
added 3.7% to $2.2443 a gallon, eyeing a weekly rise of more than 2%, while November heating oil
HOX23,
+4.55%
rose 4.1% to $3.17 a gallon, trading over 9% higher on the week.
Natural gas for November delivery
NGX23,
-3.41%
fell 3.7% to $3.22 per million British thermal units, contributing to a roughly 3.5% weekly decline.
Market drivers Oil prices rallied Friday “thanks to mounting geopolitical risks,” Lukman Otunuga, manager, market analysis at FXTM, told MarketWatch. …
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