Oil prices crawled higher on Tuesday, with traders waiting to see whether major producers agree to extend their huge output cuts to shore up prices at a meeting expected later this week, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Brent crude LCOc1 futures rose 0.4%, or 17 cents, to $38.49 a barrel as of 0220 GMT.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures traded in a 38-cent range on either side of Monday’s close, and last traded unchanged at $35.44 a barrel.
Brent has doubled over the past six weeks, thanks to supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, including Russia, a grouping dubbed OPEC+.
Both Brent and WTI prices are still down about 40% for the year so far.
OPEC+ producers are considering extending their output cut of 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd), about 10% of global production, into July or August, at an online meeting likely to be held on June 4.
Under the OPEC+ plan agreed in April, the record supply cut was to be for May and June, scaling back to a cut of 7.7 million bpd from July through December. Saudi Arabia has been leading talks to push for extending the heftier cuts, sources told Reuters last week.