ET), after settling down 24 cents at $56.56 in the previous session.Front month U.S. crude futures, also known as West Texas Intermediate, climbed 29 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $53.83 a barrel, after ending Tuesday down 34 cents. For the week, the contract is up a little over 1 percent.Oil prices have stabilized around 15 percent above the level before some producers agreed in December to curb production, National Australia Bank said in a note on Friday. "The upward pressure on oil prices has been partly offset by rising U.S. production since October last year, which is expected to continue for the rest of 2017," the bank said. "We now expect oil prices to average around the mid to high $50s in Q1 and Q2, before reaching the low $60s by end-2017 and stabilizing at around those levels in 2018. "Global oil output was cut by 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said, as part of the deal last year between OPEC and other producers led by Russia.Novak said Russian companies may cut oil production quicker than had been initially agreed with OPEC and added that he expected the market to rebalance by the middle of this year.

Source: The Star February 03, 2017 02:15 UTC