Oil Up as Markets Mull Over China Covid, Demand Worries

Oil prices rose in Asia on Friday, despite thin market liquidity, after a week marked by worries about Chinese demand and haggling over a Western price cap on Russian oil.
Brent crude futures rose by 41 cents, or 0.48%, to trade at $85.75 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures went up by 57 cents, or 0.73%, from Wednesday's close to $78.51 a barrel. There was no WTI settlement on Thursday due to the US Thanksgiving holiday, Reuters reported.
Both contracts were still headed for their third consecutive weekly decline, on track to fall by around 2% or more with worries about tight supply easing.
There are growing signs that a surge in Covid-19 cases in China, the world's top oil importer, is starting to hit fuel demand, with traffic drifting down and implied oil demand around 13 million barrels per day, or 1 million bpd lower than average, an ANZ note showed.
China on Friday reported a new daily record for Covid-19 infections, as cities across the country continued enforce mobility measures and other curbs to control outbreaks.
On the Russian oil price cap, G7 and European Union diplomats have been discussing levels between $65 and $70 a barrel, with the aim of limiting revenue to fund Moscow's military offensive in Ukraine without disrupting global oil markets.