Investing.com - Oil prices rose slightly Monday morning in Asia with expectations that output from OPEC producers would grow at a much slower pace in coming years.
Crude Oil WTI Futures for April delivery were trading at $62.63 a barrel in Asia at 10:45pm ET, up 0.10%. Brent crude futures for May delivery, traded in London, were up 0.06% at $65.60 per barrel.
Prices were supported by bullish comments from ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other industry players at the CERAWeek conference in Houston on Monday, the largest energy industry conference.
Prospects for strong compliance with the OPEC agreement to cut oil production have propped up oil prices.
In an effort to clear the global oversupply of oil, OPEC has been reducing output by around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since January 2017, with output falling to a 10-month low in February 2018. The pact will run through the end of this year.
OPEC President Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouel, who is also the oil minister of the United Arab Emirates, said on Sunday that OPEC has not discussed extending production cuts into 2019.
Meanwhile, surging shale oil production in the U.S. has taken market share from OPEC producers. The U.S. has already risen past top exporter Saudi Arabia, and is set to overtake Russia as the world’s largest oil producer by 2019 at the latest. Once the world’s top oil importer, the U.S. has increased its oil output to over 10 million bpd and is moving closer to self-sufficiency.
This month, the number of oil rigs drilling for new production in the U.S. rose to 800 for the first time since April 2015, pointing to more increases in output to come.
The International Energy Agency said on Monday that it expected annual global oil demand growth to average a fairly strong 1.1 percent to 2023.