Crude oil prices were on course to post a weekly gain earlier today despite some strong headwinds that blew the benchmarks lower earlier in the week.
A fresh round of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza once again raised the war premium on crude, pushing Brent and WTI higher as the prospect of a ceasefire moved further in the distance yet again.
In the U.S., better-than-expected unemployment figures quenched concerns about the world's biggest consumer of oil. Interestingly, it was a jobs report that pushed oil prices lower earlier in the week. The July employment report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.3%, reigniting fears of a recession.
"The latest U.S. data on jobless claims indicates still a growing U.S. economy, reducing some of the oil demand concerns," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo told Reuters.
"A recovery in the stock market is also easing some recessionary demand fears," BOK Financial Securities senior VP for trading, Dennis Kissler, told Bloomberg, also noting the expectations of an Iranian retaliation against Israel for the attack that killed Hamas' top commander in Tehran.
"It will spike the price of crude oil if there is an Iranian retaliation on a large scale and I think that is what everyone is most worried about," Matador Economics chief economist Tim Snyder told Reuters.
"Crude oil continued its recovery from its recent plunge as elevated geopolitical risks came into focus," ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes told Reuters, which reported it expected crude oil prices to log a 3% weekly increase today.
The latest weekly numbers were apparently enough to stave off those fears, helping oil prices climb higher, with some support from Libya's production outage at the largest oil field in the country. Sharara was shut down earlier in the week amid protests.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More