Crude oil prices continued to climb on Monday as expectations grow for an extension to the OPEC production agreement, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
With the June contract expiring at the session’s end, West Texas Intermediate crude added 40 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $50.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. July WTI ended at $51.13 a barrel, up 46 cents, or 0.9%.
On the London ICE Futures Exchange, July Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 26 cents, or 0.5%, to end trading at $53.87 a barrel.
OPEC members and major oil producers will meet in Vienna this week to discuss extending the six-month agreement to cut production by 1.8 million barrels a day set to expire in June.
U.S. shale-oil producers have been steadily ramping up production. The Energy Information Administration is forecasting domestic output to hit a record of nearly 10 million barrels a day in 2018.
Meanwhile, June natural gas ended at $3.33 per million British thermal units, up 7.4 cents, or 2.3%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.