Oil prices traded higher during Friday's Asian trade, poised for their second consecutive weekly gain as United States sanctions on Iran and a fresh OPEC+ plan to curb overproduction fueled expectations of tighter supply.
As of 2:35 pm AEDT (3:35 am GMT), Brent crude futures rose $0.26, or 0.4%, to $72.26 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for May delivery gained $1.10, or 1.6%, to $68.26 per barrel.
Both benchmarks were set to advance about 2% for the week, marking their strongest weekly performance since early 2025.
The U.S. Treasury on Thursday imposed new sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, marking the fourth round of such measures since President Donald Trump renewed his "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran in February.
Notably, Washington's latest move also sanctioned a Chinese independent refiner, further tightening restrictions on entities involved in transporting Iranian crude to China.
Despite these developments, analysts at ANZ cautioned that the impact of sanctions could be offset by rising output from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) "after the group decided to go ahead with planned production hikes in April.
"However, members who have been persistently flouting current quotas announced new plans yesterday to make additional cutbacks to compensate for the overproduction. These plans could effectively offset the production hikes, leaving OPEC production steady in coming months."
OPEC+ recently confirmed plans to proceed with a scheduled production increase of 138,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April. However, several members that have exceeded previous quotas pledged to introduce additional cutbacks to compensate for past overproduction.
