Investing.com – Crude oil prices settled higher on Friday but failed to offset a weekly loss as investors weighed rising US output amid a fall in expectations that OPEC will extend its deal to curb output.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for December delivery rose by 2.6% to settle at $56.55 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent rose 2.15% cents to trade at $62.68 a barrel.
Despite rising sharply on Friday, crude oil futures failed to pare losses earlier week amid ongoing investor fears that rising U.S. output would dampen OPEC’s efforts to rid the market of excess supplies.
Preliminary U.S. production figures this week, showed weekly output rose by 25,000 to an all-time high of 9.65 million barrels per day, while crude oil stockpiles rose for second week in a row.
The International Energy Agency said on Thursday that the U.S. would account for 80% of the global increase in oil production over the next decade.
Also adding to fears of an increase in global crude supplies was a report on Thursday indicating Iraq and Turkey were considering resuming Kirkuk oil export from the Ceyhan pipeline. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline exports about 600,000 barrels of oil, but current crude flows are flowing at a rate below 100,000 barrels, following political unrest in the region.
In the U.S.,meanwhile, Baker Hughes released its count of oil rigs operating in the US remained unchanged from a week ago at 738.
The uptick in oil prices is expected to remain limited amid fears that OPEC may opt against extending its production-cut agreement beyond March as concerns grew that Russia was reluctant to support an extension of the deal at the upcoming OPEC meeting on Nov. 30.
In May, Opec producers agreed to extend production cuts for a period of nine months until March, but stuck to production cuts of 1.2 million bpd agreed in November last year.