By Nicole Friedman and Miriam Malek

NEW YORK -- Oil prices rose on Tuesday, pushed higher by the threat of union strikes by Norwegian oil and gas workers.

U.S. crude for August delivery recently rose $1.31, or 2.8%, to $47.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose $1.19, or 2.5%, to $48.35 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Up to 7,500 oil and gas workers could go on strike starting Saturday, limiting production from Norway, one of Europe's major producers. The workers are demanding a new wage deal before midnight on July 1.

Norway produced 1.96 million barrels a day in May, or about 2.1% of the world's oil output, according to the International Energy Agency.

"Today's price rise is attributable first and foremost to possible production outages in Norway," said Commerzbank, noting that the oil fields that could be affected by a strike account for 18% of the country's oil output.

Oil prices are rebounding after a two-day selloff following the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union. The Brexit vote fueled concerns that European economic growth would slow and strengthened the dollar, making dollar-priced oil more expensive for foreign buyers.

However, some analysts say it is too soon to say whether Brexit would affect global oil supply and demand. Slower economic growth in Europe could reduce oil demand, but reduced investment in new drilling due to a poorer economic outlook could also limit oil supply.

"The European market is not the primary driver of global crude-oil demand growth and thus does not significantly affect our longer-term view," said Michael Loewen, analyst at Scotiabank, in a note. Still, he added, "crude oil may find some difficulty rallying past $50 a barrel on a sustained basis in the near term due to these recent events."

Gasoline futures recently rose 1.5% to $1.4983 a gallon. Diesel futures rose 2.6% to $1.4666 a gallon.

--Kjetil Malkenes Hovland contributed to this article.

Write to Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com and Miriam Malek at Miriam.Malek@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 28, 2016 10:24 ET (14:24 GMT)

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