Crude prices finished with a second straight week of double-digit gains on Friday after the  U.S. oil rig count hit financial crisis lows.

West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude, settled up $1.19, or 5%, at $24.74 per barrel.

For the week, WTI was up 25%, pushing through with the previous week’s near 17% gain as traders and investors bet on slumping oil production and nascent recovery in demand from a reopening of the U.S. economy from Covid-19 lockdowns.

“WTI is still the cheapest barrel to run in North America and that tells me it should continue to perform,” said Scott Shelton, energy futures broker at ICAP in Durham, N.C.

London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for oil, finished up $1.51, or 5%, at $30.97. For the week, Brent was up nearly 17%, after last week’s gain of more than 23%.

U.S. oil rigs, as measured by oil services firm Baker Hughes, fell by 33 this week to reach 292. The number had previously never fallen beneath 300, since the 2008/09 financial crisis.

The record low for U.S. oil rigs was 98, seen in November 2002. But a combination of oil and gas rigs, known as the total rig count, hit a record low of 374, after falling by 34 this week, according to Baker Hughes, which has been tracking those numbers since 1940.

Last updated on Sat., May 9, 2020.