Crude oil futures settled higher on Tuesday, ending a six-session consecutive losing streak that pushed the U.S. benchmark to its lowest settlement of the month, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, June West Texas Intermediate crude climbed by 33 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $49.56 a barrel.
On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, June Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 50 cents, or 1%, to end trading at $52.10 a barrel.
OPEC and other major producers agreed to cut production by 1.8 million barrels a day in the first half of 2017 but the cartel is uncertain about an extension of the deal when it meets in May.
“Until OPEC announces an official decision on whether to extend the production cuts, the main focus of the market will be on that,” said Nelson Wang, an energy analyst at CLSA.
Meanwhile, May natural gas fell 2.3 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $3.043 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The American Petroleum Institute will issue its weekly data on domestic petroleum supplies late Tuesday, followed by official inventory data from the Energy Information Administration early Wednesday.
Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expect the EIA data to reveal a weekly fall of 1 million barrels in crude oil stockpiles.