Oil rises

Reuters

New York

Oil rose modestly in a spate of late-day activity, but fell on the week as concerns persisted over an excess of crude.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled up 27 cents to $47.97 a barrel, but lost 0.5 percent on the week.

About 390,000 WTI contracts had changed hands, lower than the average of about 520,000 over the last 200 days.

Brent crude ended up 24 cents to $50.80, and ended down 1.8 percent this week.

Oil has been on the back foot for more than two weeks now, after a string of U.S. inventory reports suggested that output cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries were not having the desired effect in reducing global oversupply.

On Thursday, a Saudi energy ministry official told Reuters that crude exports to the United States in March would fall by around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) from February and hold at those levels for the next few months.