Oil surges

Tokyo : Crude prices rose but were set to drop for the week as concerns about oversupply and lower demand due to a possible economic slowdown caused by the trade conflict between the United States and China, the world´s two biggest oil users.

Brent oil rose 7 cents to $72.65 a barrel by 0354 GMT, after rising to $73.04 earlier in the day.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 14 cents at $69.60 a barrel, after reaching a high of $70.03 earlier.

However, both benchmarks are on track for their third weekly loss, after big declines on Monday, with Brent set to drop 3.6 percent and WTI to fall by 2 percent.

Prices have been dragged down by concerns about oversupply as some production returned after outages, while trade tensions between the U.S. and China stoked fears of damage to their economies and commodities demand.