By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for March delivery was up 14 cents at $96.50 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.25 to settle at $96.36 on Thursday.
In London, Brent crude was up 29 cents at $112.36 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
The Labor Department is scheduled to release January employment figures later Friday, data that analysts consider one of the most important measures of economic health. The U.S. created 200,000 jobs in December with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, and economists expect about 140,000 jobs were added last month.
