On Friday, oil prices bounced back as the closure of a major Canada-to-US crude pipeline disrupted supplies, but both benchmarks were headed for a weekly loss due to worries over slowing global demand growth.
The price of crude futures was at $76.70 a barrel, up 55 cents, or 0.72 per cent, at 0434 GMT, after dropping 1.3 per cent on Thursday.
The US West Texas Intermediate crude was up 52 cents, or 0.73 per cent, to $71.98 a barrel after settling 0.8 per cent lower in the previous session.
The news of an accident closing Canada's Keystone pipeline in the United States prompted a rally on Thursday, but prices slowed as the market took a view that the closure would be brief. More than 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas in the past, making it one of the largest crude spills in the United States in nearly a decade.
RBC Capital analyst Robert Kwan said previous spill-induced outages are usually rectified in about two weeks, although the latest outage may be longer, given that it involves a spill into a creek.
Surging infections will likely depress China's economic growth in the next few months, causing a rebound only later in 2023, according to economists.
Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights said the market lacks conviction in calling a bottom to crude despite the strong losing streak of the past several sessions.
Thursday's price slump despite two major crude supply disruptions is a bit bewildering and shows growing cluelessness, she further said.
It is likely that thinning trading activity will make it worse, wherein the few remaining actors are playing it safe by continuing to sell and steer clear of the long side, according to Hari.
The U.S. economy is going to go into a short and shallow recession over the next year, according to economists polled by Reuters who unanimously predicted the U.S. Federal Reserve will go for a smaller 50 basis point interest rate hike on December 14.
The European Central Bank will take its deposit rate by 50 basis points next week to 2.00 per cent, despite the euro zone's economy almost certainly being in recession, as it battles inflation running at five times its target, according to another Reuters poll.