Oil climbs marginally, propelled by US stock index surge.

A barrel of European reference crude Brent goes for USD 78.81 on Friday morning, up from USD 77.68 on Thursday afternoon. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate simultaneously trades at USD 75.15, against USD 74.40.

Oil manages to creep higher following weeks of major drops due to US economic uncertainties, writes Reuters.

”The market is quiet due to a mixture of bullish and bearish economic data,” says Satoru Yoshida, commodities analyst at Rakuten Securities, to the news agency.

He believes investors are currently waiting on central bank guidance on the future direction of interest rates.

The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are all, however, expected to raise rates which will send demand and oil prices tumbling.

On the supply side, Reuter cites the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak for saying on Thursday that the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, OPEC+, sees no need for further output cuts despite lower-than-expected Chinese demand.