Oil prices rose yesterday, at a time when countries including Australia are moving forward with plans to ease the general economic and social isolation measures that were imposed to stop the spread of the Corona Virus pandemic "COFED-19", which sparked market hopes to boost the demand for crude and its products.
And Brent crude rose 87 cents, or 3%, to $ 30.33 a barrel, after falling almost 1% on Thursday.
In turn, US crude gained $ 1.12, or 4.8%, to $ 24.67 a barrel, after dropping about 2% in the previous session.
The benchmarks are heading for gains for the second week, after low levels reached last April, when US oil collapsed below zero, with Brent rising about 15% per week, and West Texas Intermediate by more than 24%.
On the supply side, North American oil companies are slashing production faster than OPEC officials and industry analysts have expected, as they tend to pull about 1.7 million barrels per day of production at the end of next June.
But US crude stocks at the Cushing Warehouse in Oklahoma State increased by about 407,000 barrels in the week ending May 5, traders said on Thursday.
Australia has become the latest country planning to ease restrictions on public isolation, after the incidence of Corona virus has slowed to a minimal level, aiming to ease restrictions on social separation in a three-stage process.
France, parts of the United States and countries like Pakistan also intend to ease the restrictions that have been established to stop the spread of the world's worst health crisis in a century.
In the United States, the world's largest consumer of oil and petroleum products, vehicles are returning to the roads again with the easing of public isolation measures. Fuel supplies to the US market increased to about 6.7 million barrels per day, last week, according to estimates from the US Energy Information Administration.