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Oil prices rebounded Friday on supply concern following strikes at French refineries, and after a report showed a dip in U.S. inflation.

What prices are doing: Crude oil for March delivery rose 75 cents to settle at $79.81 a barrel on Friday. Prices had fallen as low as $77.76 earlier in the session.

On Thursday, oil rose to its highest level in five weeks after an inventory report showed a larger-than-expected inventory drop in supplies of some refined products.

The oil market was closed Monday in the United States in observance of Presidents Day, but prices rose steadily throughout the remainder of the week. From Tuesday to Friday, crude prices gained 3.6%.

What’s driving prices: A stronger dollar kept oil prices in check early Friday, a day after the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.75%.

But later in the session, reports surfaced about an intensifying strike at French oil giant Total SA, which began shutting operations and warned of fuel shortages. Workers have been on strike for three days to protest Total’s permanent closure of oil processing at a plant in Flanders.

A Friday morning economic report also helped put a floor under prices. The Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation reading, showed prices rose just 0.2% in January. The core inflation rate fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1%.

Gas prices: The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose to $2.623, up 0.9 cents from the previous day’s price of $2.614, according to motorist group AAA. 

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