Oil futures: Brent up 2.5% as recessionary fears sidelined  

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Crude oil futures Friday were comfortably higher as supply/demand fundamentals came back into focus following this week's downbeat news on the state of the broader US economy, although a late selloff saw price retreat by around $2/b from earlier highs.

October ICE Brent futures were trading at $104.32/barrel (1700 GMT), compared to Thursday's settle of $101.83/b, while the Sep22 contract was at $110.06/b ahead of expiry.

At the same time, September NYMEX WTI was trading $99.47/b, versus Thursday's settle of $96.42/b.

The Federal Reserve's battle to calm inflation with another 0.75% rate hike and warnings over a recession dampened sentiment in the second half of the week, but the focus has also flipped back to supply/demand fundamentals ahead of the OPEC+ meeting.

This week's US energy data supported wider sentiment, with US consumption largely seen holding up and record export levels highlighting global demand.

"Based on the demand numbers that we saw in the Energy Information Administration (EIA), you would have to say that the talk of demand destruction is still greatly exaggerated, or at least somewhat exaggerated," said Phil Flynn of The Price Futures Group.

Flynn highlighted crude oil exports at a "whopping" 4.55 million barrels a day and US petroleum stocks hitting the lowest level since 2008.

Attention also switched to next week's OPEC+ meeting and, although lobbying for a steep increase has intensified, the producer group is expected to announce at best only modest hikes for September and beyond.

As of August, the record 9.7 million bpd cuts in 2020 as a response to Covid-19 will have been unwound, at least in theory, with many producers struggling to get back to pre-2020 levels.