Investing.com - Crude oil prices remained supported on Thursday, as traders awaited the outcome of a highly anticipated meeting of major oil producers.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude January contract was up 40 cents or about 0.70% at $57.70 a barrel by 09:50 a.m. ET (13:50 GMT).
Elsewhere, Brent oil for February delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London was up 49 cents or about 0.78% at $63.02 a barrel.
Oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major producing countries were meeting in Vienna on Thursday to decide whether to extend their current production agreement beyond a March 2018 deadline.
Most market analysts expect the oil cartel to extend output cuts for a further nine months 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.
Elsewhere, gasoline futures were up 0.22% at $1.740 a gallon, while natural gas futures lost 3.18% to $3.078 per million British thermal units.