Investing.com - Crude oil prices were mixed on Thursday, amid sustained concerns over rising production in the U.S.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude March contract was little changed at $61.83 a barrel by 04:00 a.m. ET (08:00 GMT), after hitting its lowest level since January 5 at $61.09 earlier in the day.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for April delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London declined 23 cents or about 0.37% to $65.27 a barrel, just off a six-week low of $64.68 reached earlier.
Oil prices remained under pressure since data last week showed that U.S. oil production topped the 10 million barrels per day (bpd) mark.
Domestic oil production, driven by shale extraction, rose 3.3% to an all-time high of 10.25 million bpd, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That figure is above that of top exporter Saudi Arabia and within reach of Russia's output levels.
Prices were also hit by news U.S. commercial crude stocks increased by 1.9 million barrels in the week to February 2, to 420.25 million barrels.
That added to fears that rising U.S. output would dampen OPEC’s efforts to rid the market of excess supplies.
The producer group, along with some non-OPEC members led by Russia, agreed in December to extend oil output cuts until the end of 2018.
The deal to cut oil output by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) was adopted last winter by OPEC, Russia and nine other global producers. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.
Elsewhere, gasoline futures rose 0.22% to $1.768 a gallon, while natural gas futures rallied 1.48% to $2.743 per million British thermal units.