December Brent, the global benchmark rose $1.14, or 1.9%, to finish at $60.44 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. That was the highest settlement for a front-month contract since July 2015. The contract rose about 4.7% for the week.
Baker Hughes BHGE, +4.54% on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil, a proxy for drilling activity, edged up by 1 to 737 this week. The modest figure marked the first weekly rise in four weeks.
Shale explorers added just a single rig to fields nationwide as the industry gets used to prices sitting comfortably above $50 a barrel.