Oil prices inched up on Oct. 9, setting both benchmark contracts on track for their biggest weekly gains since early June, on the back of supply outages caused by a storm in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and a strike of offshore workers in Norway.

Brent was up 16 cents at $43.50/bbl by 2:48 a.m. CT (7:48 GMT). WTI crude in the U.S. rose 14 cents to $41.33/bbl.

Both contracts are on track for gains of around 11% this week, the first weekly rise in three weeks.

Brent's six-month contango, a market structure where the front-month Brent futures are trading at a discount to later contracts implying current oversupply, has shrunk to around $1.90/bbl from $3.24 less than a month ago.

Norwegian oil company and labor officials said they would meet with a state-appointed mediator on Oct. 9 in an attempt to bring an end to a strike.

An escalation could almost triple the existing outage from the ongoing strike if no solution is reached by Oct. 14, taking the total capacity cut to around 934,000 boe/d.

In the GoM, producers have shut 1.69 million bbl/d of oil, or 92% of the region's offshore oil, and 1.67 Bcf/d, or nearly 62% of its natural gas output, bracing for the impact of Hurricane Delta.

"Non-OPEC production is going to take a big hit over the next couple of weeks and this will continue to drive the rebalancing of the oil market," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.

OPEC said on Oct. 8 world oil demand will plateau in the late 2030s and could by then have begun to decline.