The count for oil dropped to 442 from last Friday's 451 tally, while gas added five rigs to 114. Miscellaneous rigs were unchanged at three. The US had 492 oil, 98 gas and four miscellaneous rigs in operation a year earlier, the data showed.

As of Friday, a total of 559 rigs were operating in the US, compared with the previous week's tally of 563 and 594 a year earlier.

Across North America, the oil and gas rigs count decreased by two to 673, with Canada's tally increasing by two to 114.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up 2.2% at $64.78 a barrel in Friday afternoon trade, while Brent rose 1.9% to $66.59 a barrel. Both benchmarks were on track for their first weekly rise in three weeks.

Oil markets benefited from renewed optimism as the US and China resume trade talks, combined with worries about supply in countries including Venezuela, Libya and Iran, Saxo Bank Head of Commodity Strategy Ole Hansen said.

In a social media post on Friday, US President Donald Trump announced that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and two other officials will hold trade talks with representatives from China in London on Monday.

That came a day after Trump said that he held a phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Previously, the countries accused each other of violating their preliminary trade deal.

Price: 37.97, Change: +0.82, Percent Change: +2.21

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