On March 6, oil futures rose to above $45a barrel as dollar weakness and expectations of further output cuts by OPEC offset data showing that U.S. employment soared to the highest rate in more than 25 years.

April delivery crude oil rose $1.91 or 4.4% to close at $45.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange with the weekly benchmark rising 1.7 percent.

Crude oil for April delivery rose $1.91, or 4.4%, to close at $45.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, the benchmark contract rose 1.7%.

In February U.S. nonfarm payrolls shrank by 651,000 according to Labor Department reports.

The unemployment rate also reached its highest level since December 1983. Economists had expected job losses of 650,000 and an unemployment rate of 8%.

The US economy has seen a loss of more than 2.5 million jobs in the last four months.

In late Friday trading, the euro was up 0.6% against the dollar to $1.2617, while the dollar index

A weaker dollar tends to put upward pressure on dollar-denominated oil prices.

Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT, said there was talk ahead of the jobs data that nonfarm payrolls could fall by 1 million. The fact that the data were better than the rumored number led to an improvement in risk appetite, Lien said in a research note.

In this past week oil, oil trading was volatile following a Monday slump of 10 percent.

A 4.2 million barrels a day reduction in output has already been announced by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has already announced in September, this equals about 5 percent of global oil demand.

Crude oil Unemployment