Prices, however, suffered a weekly loss, their largest since early May, on signs of a potential recovery in crude production.

July West Texas Intermediate crude CLN6, +4.44% added $1.77, or 3.8%, to settle at $47.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It finished about 2.2% lower for the week, which was the biggest loss since the week ended May 6.

August Brent crude LCOQ6, +4.37% climbed $1.98, or 4.2%, to end at $49.17 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange, for a weekly loss of roughly 2.7%. That was also the biggest weekly decline in six weeks.

Equities in Europe and Asia saw broad gains Friday after official campaigning in the U.K. was temporarily suspended following the killing of British lawmaker Jo Cox ahead of the vote on June 23. Cox was an advocate for the U.K. to stay in the EU.

Analysts say that while a British exit from the bloc, or “Brexit,” may not have a direct effect on oil, the market could be hurt. The ensuing turmoil in the case of a Brexit could worsen sentiment for riskier assets such as commodities and raise worries about a slowdown in energy demand. Oil could also take a hit from a rising dollar, which analysts expect to strengthen if the U.K. votes to leave the EU.

“A majority for Brexit could see oil prices fall to our existing end-2016 targets of $45 much sooner,” for Brent and WTI, analysts at Capital Economics, said in a note.

On Friday, the dollar weakened, providing support for crude, which is priced in the greenback. The U.S. ICE dollar index DXY, -0.49% fell 0.5%.

Price pressures

Still, oil futures ended the week with a sizable loss.

“The price of the energy commodity ran up too far, for too long,” said Nico Pantelis, head of research at Secular Investor.

“We still expect a price retreat for oil into the low 40’s,” with the first support level at $43 a barrel for WTI crude, he said. “Next week, as the pressure for the Brexit outcome mounts, we suspect oil prices once again will be weak.”

The short-term outlook for the oil market remains hazy as supply outages, the main driver for the recent price rally, are winding down. Canada has restarted a bulk of its oil operations after the recent wildfires and Jefferies expects about 1.2 million barrels a day to come back online soon.

With prices now at levels that make drilling economical for some firms, U.S. oil-rig counts, a rough proxy for activity in the industry, have now increased for three weeks in a row.

Oil prices briefly pared some gains after data from Baker Hughes BHI, +1.87% showed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 9 to 337 as of Friday, raising concerns that production will climb. The total U.S. rig count climbed by 10 to 424.

On Nymex Friday, price gains for the petroleum products helped them trim weekly losses. July gasoline RBN6, +3.26% added 4 cents, or 2.7%, to $1.505 a gallon, with prices down around 3.5% for the week, and July heating oil HON6, +4.43% tacked on 5.9 cents, or 4.1%, to $1.482 a gallon, to lose 2.3% on the week.

Natural gas futures NGN16, +2.87% rose 4.3 cents, or 1.7%, to $2.623 per million British thermal units, with prices up 2.6% for the week.

The Energy Information Administration on Thursday reported a rise of 69 billion cubic feet in weekly U.S. natural-gas supplies.

“Power sector consumption continues to gobble up gas,” reducing supply increases, said Richard Hastings, macro strategist at Seaport Global, in a note. “Injections are down 238 bcf in the last seven weeks, compared to a year ago.”

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