Drop in rig counts helps oil stage last minute rally

Oil futures settled higher Friday, with gains for the U.S. benchmark intensifying in the last few minutes of trading after a report showing a 26th straight weekly decline in the number of U.S. rigs actively drilling for oil.

The news outweighed pressure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’s decision not to change its production ceiling.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, July crude CLN5, +1.52% tacked on $1.13, or 2%, to settle at $59.13 a barrel. It had traded below $57 in the wake of the OPEC decision early Friday. Prices moved decidedly higher after rig-count data came out at around 1 p.m. Eastern.

Prices still lost 1.9% for the week, the first weekly loss for a most-active contract since the week ended March 13.

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