Investing.com - U.S. oil prices moved higher on Friday, but the commodity still remained under pressure as the Organization of Petrolium Exporting Countries’s decision to extend production cuts disappointed traders.
U.S. crude futures for July delivery were up 0.47% at $49.12 a barrel, off a one-week trough of $48.27 hit overnight.
On the ICE Futures Exchange in London, the July Brent contract climbed 0.52% to $51.74 a barrel, after hitting a two-week low of $50.89 earlier in the day.
Crude prices tumbled after OPEC agreed on Thursday to extend its production cuts for nine extra months, citing delegates at a highly anticipated meeting in Vienna.
However, the move disappointed some traders who had hoped for longer or deeper cuts.
In December last year, OPEC and 11 other non-OPEC producers, including Russia, agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day between January 1 and June 30 in what was the first joint accord in 15 years.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih had indicated that the major oil producers were likely to agree on extending production cuts for nine months to March 2018 as widely expected, but also stated that the consensus among members was that deeper cuts are not needed now.
Among OPEC members, Nigeria and Libya will continue to be exempt from an output cap while Iran’s output would remain at 3.8 million barrels per day.
In any case, commodity strategists from ING questioned why they were bothering to extend the agreement.