Oil futures settled with a loss on Friday, as strength in the U.S. dollar helped pull prices down by almost 6% for the week. U.S. prices for oil ended at their lowest level in roughly a month. Natural-gas futures NGX15, -4.40% however, took the biggest hit Friday, settling 4.2% lower at $2.286 per million British thermal units for their worst close since 2012 on prospects for weaker demand. December West Texas Intermediate crude CLZ5, -1.43% fell 78 cents, or 1.7%, to settle at $44.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Based on the most-active contracts, that was the lowest settlement since Sept. 28. Prices saw a weekly drop of 5.6%, the biggest since the week ended Aug. 7. Prices for the December contract, specifically, fell 6.5% for the week. December Brent crude LCOZ5, +0.04% on London's ICE Futures exchange lost 9 cents, or 0.2%, to end at $47.99 a barrel — about 4.8% lower on the week. WTI prices were trading a bit better, at around $44.80, right before data from Baker Hughes BHI, -2.99% showed the number of active U.S. oil-drilling rigs fell by just 1 to 594 as of Friday. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes natural-gas rigs, was unchanged at 787. Read: Talk of reviving this OPEC oil price plan is blast from the past Oil traders have been considering the prospects of new stimulus measures from the European Central Bank. ECB President Mario Draghi said Thursday that the bank is "open to a whole new menu of monetary-policy instruments" to help jump-start the region's economy, which has been grappling with ultralow inflation and a lukewarm recovery. The People's Bank of China added to the climate of global monetary easing Friday by cutting its two key interest rates. The ECB news added additional liquidity to the market and gave commodity markets a boost, "as the market sees the ECB committed to protecting asset prices," said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group. But "more easing by the EU lowers the value of the euro EURUSD, -0.8281% currency and adds strength to the dollar DXY, +0.66% thereby providing a headwind for the [oil] price," Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group, said in a note. The U.S. ICE Dollar Index traded 0.8% higher Friday as oil prices settled, and was up more than 2% for the week. Oil demand "will probably win out overall because it is the only way we can work off over supply, and then we can start to worry about the billions of dollars of energy projects that have been canceled," said Flynn. Looking ahead to next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve will hold a two-day monetary-policy meeting ending Wednesday. On Nymex, November gasoline RBX5, +0.00% edged down by less than half a cent to $1.304 a gallon, down 1.8% for the week, while November heating oil HOX5, -0.58% shed 1.5 cents, or 1%, to $1.465 a gallon, for a weekly loss of 2.1%.
