Crude oil futures recovered modest ground on Friday, following two days of heavy selling, despite the dollar gaining traction and as focus turned to weekly inventory data.

Crude for April delivery settled up 29 cents at $93.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but nursed a weekly loss of around 3% on nerves about weak demand prospects.

On Thursday the Energy Information Administration said crude oil supplies rose by 4.1m barrels in the last week, around double the level expected. Stockpiles are now at the highest level since the EIA started compiling the data at the start of the 1980's. In contrast, weekly gasoline and distillate supplies fell more than expected.

Traders mulled gloomy US manufacturing data while markets also reacted to comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the central bank is committed to a third round of quantitative easing.

There had been concern that the Fed would wind down or stop its quantitative easing programme earlier than expected amid concern about government borrowing and an expanding Fed balance sheet.

Over on the ICE futures exchange, April Brent crude oil also recovered from recent losses to settle 51 cents higher at $114.10 a barrel on Friday. Like US crude, Brent fell 3% for the week.

Among precious metals gold skidded to a seven-month low on Friday and logged a weekly loss of 2.3% as investors took fright that the Fed is likely to announce a third round of quantitative easing.

Gold for delivery in April dropped $5.80 to settle at $1,572.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.





CJ

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