Crude oil prices recouped some of this week’s losses in early morning trade on Thursday, as growing expectations that OPEC will extend an ongoing production cut agreement at a meeting at the end of this month offset concern over rising U.S. crude stockpiles and output.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures tacked on 11 cents, or about 0.2%, to $55.44 a barrel by 3:35AM ET (0835GMT).
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., inched up 22 cents, or around 0.4%, to $62.10 a barrel.
Oil prices settled lower for the fourth day in a row on Wednesday, pressured by an unexpected increase in U.S. crude inventories and as domestic output rose last week.
Crude oil inventories rose by 1.9 million barrels, according to the EIA, marking the second-straight increase. That compared with analysts’ expectations for a decline of 2.2 million barrels.
The report also showed that domestic production rose by 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a record 9.645 million. Output has now risen by almost 15% since the most recent low in mid-2016, casting doubts over the past few months’ narrative of tightening energy markets.
This week’s price drop means that crude futures are down by around 5% since reaching 28-month highs last week, ending an impressive 40% rally between June and early November.
Despite the cautious sentiment, crude prices are expected to remain supported amid optimism that oil producing countries will agree to extend an output cut at their meeting at the end of this month.
Discussions are continuing in the run-up to the Nov. 30 meeting, which oil ministers from OPEC and the participating non-OPEC countries will attend.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures were little changed at $1.738 a gallon, while heating oil added half a cent to $1.915 a gallon.
Natural gas futures held steady at $3.075 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day.
