Oil prices headed for 3% weekly fall on emergency stocks release

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Oil prices inched up on Friday but were set to fall around 3% for the week after consuming countries agreed to release 240 million barrels of oil from emergency stocks to help offset disrupted Russian supply.

Brent crude futures rose 13 cents, or 0.1% to $100.71 a barrel at 0139 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures advanced 35 cents, or 0.4%, to $96.38 a barrel.

Analysts said the emergency oil release, amounting to about 1 million barrels per day from May to the end of the year, might cap price rises in the short term, but would not fully cover volumes lost from Russia due to sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special operation”.