Oil Prices Inch Higher in Volatile Trade as OPEC Meeting Kicks Off

Investing.com – Crude futures inched higher in early deals on Thursday, but prices were likely to stay volatile with energy markets focused on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries highly-anticipated .

Oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major producing countries will meet in Vienna Thursday morning to decide whether to extend their current production agreement beyond a March 2018 deadline.

Most market analysts expect the oil cartel to until the end of 2018, but the terms were so far unclear, as Russia has sent mixed signals about whether it will back the move.

In November last year, OPEC and 11 other non-OPEC producers, led by Russia, agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day between January 1 and June 30. The agreement was extended in May of this year for a period of nine months until March 2018 in a bid to reduce global oil inventories and support oil prices.

futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., tacked on 18 cents, or 0.3%, to $62.71 a barrel by 3:15AM ET (0815GMT), after losing 1.1% in prior session.

Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) inched up 17 cents, or about 0.3%, to $57.45 a barrel. It ended down 1.2% a day earlier.

Oil prices as growing uncertainty over the outcome of a closely watched OPEC meeting and evidence of rising U.S. output dampened sentiment.

U.S. crude oil production hit a new record of 9.68 million barrels per day (bpd) last week, according to government data released on Wednesday, bringing U.S. output close to levels of top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Fears that rising U.S. output would dampen OPEC’s efforts to rid the market of excess supplies are prevented prices from rising much further, according to market participants.

In other energy trading, were steady at $1.736 a gallon, while was little changed at $1.924 a gallon.

sank 7.5 cents, or 2.4%, to $3.104 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to due later in the global day.

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