Oil prices have surged following the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, as markets speculate about a possible shift in the kingdom’s policy of allowing crude prices to fall.

Brent crude jumped $1.18 to $49.70 a barrel, a 2.4% gain, after the royal court announced the death. The US benchmark for March delivery rose $1.02, or 2.2%, to $47.33 a barrel.

Oil prices tumbled on Thursday after the European Central Bank announced a bigger-than-expected €1.1tn bond-buying programme aimed at kickstarting the eurozone economy. But news of the king’s death early on Friday sparked a rally.

The 90-year-old monarch, who was admitted to hospital in December with pneumonia, has been succeeded by his half-brother, Crown Prince Salman. He vowed to maintain the same approach as his predecessors.

“We will, with God’s support, maintain the straight path that this country has advanced on since its establishment by the late King Abdulaziz,” the new king said in a speech broadcast on state television.

Saudi state TV reported that King Salman, 79, is keeping Ali al-Naimi as the country’s oil minister, a position he has held since 1995.

Crude oil prices pared gains on the news, but Brent was still 1.3% higher at $49.15 a barrel mid-morning. Many analysts do not expect Saudi oil policy to change.

Oil prices have more than halved since the summer, when crude was more than $100 a barrel, amid an oil glut and weak global demand. A shale boom in the US has turned the US from the world’s biggest oil importer into a major producer, pumping more than 9m barrels a day.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, led a decision by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in November to keep the cartel’s production unchanged at 30m barrels a day.

Daniel Ang, an investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore, said: “As we are uncertain of how the new king would react to the current supply glut, we believe that the market is pricing in this uncertainty, causing prices to spike.

“However, this premium would likely only persist temporarily. This premium should wear off once the market is clear of the new king’s view on the oil situation.”