2018.08.0315:26:00UTC+00Oil Settles Lower

Oil prices edged lower on Friday, amid renewed concerns about excess supply in the market, after data showed oil output in Russia to have increased sharply in July.

Russian oil output rose by 150,000 barrels per day in July from a month earlier, surpassing the amount Moscow had said it would add following a key Vienna meeting in June.

Concerns about a likely drop in demand for crude amid escalating U.S.-China trade war weighed as well.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has cut the September official selling prices for all its grades to meet customer demand.

Baker Hughes reported that active U.S. rigs count dropped by 2 to 859 rigs in the week. Last week, Baker Hughes said, three rigs were added in the U.S, taking the total rig count in the country to 861.

Oil's downside was somewhat limited due to U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Crude oil futures for September settled at $68.49 a barrel, losing $0.47, or 0.7% in the session. For the week, oil shed about 0.3%.

On Thursday, crude oil futures ended up $1.30, or 1.9%, at $68.96 a barrel.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Thursday on reports that crude stockpiles at Cushing, Okla declined by about 3.6%.

Before Thursday's rise, oil prices had weakened after data from Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed U.S. crude inventories to have risen unexpectedly by 3.8 barrels last week.

A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute released a report that showed U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 5.59 million barrels last week, compared to expectations for a 2.8 million-barrel drawdown.