Oil prices rise on Middle East tensions, supply caps gains

Oil prices rose slightly in early Asian trading on Friday, maintaining strong weekly gains as investors weighed the conflict in the Middle East and potential disruptions to crude flows against a well-supplied global market.

Brent crude futures were up 9 cents, or 0.12 percent, at $77.71 a barrel by 0010 GMT.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 8 cents, or 0.11 percent, at $73.79 a barrel, according to Reuters. Both benchmarks are on track for weekly gains of about 8 percent