Investing.com - Crude prices started the week in positive territory on Monday, pushed higher by comments from Saudi Arabia that cooperation between oil producers who are currently withholding supplies in an effort to prop up the market would continue beyond 2018.
Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., were at $68.86 a barrel by 3:40AM ET (0840GMT), up 25 cents, or 0.4%, from their last close.
Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures tacked on 21 cents to $63.52 a barrel.
OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers have a consensus that they should continue cooperating on production after the end of 2018, when their current agreement on production cuts expires, Saudi Arabian energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on Sunday.
Falih added that this might mean a new form of deal rather than continuing the same supply cuts that have boosted prices in recent months.
He spoke at a news conference after a meeting of the joint ministerial committee which oversees implementation of the cuts.
Oil prices have added around 10% since early December, benefiting from production cut efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia. The producers agreed in December to extend current 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.
Oil prices posted their first weekly loss in five weeks last week as traders fretted over a sharp rebound in U.S. production.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its monthly report Friday, warned that rapidly increasing production in the United States would offset a raft of positive factors supporting oil prices including ongoing OPEC output cuts.
The IEA said it expects U.S. output levels to soon exceed 10 million barrels per day (bpd), overtaking OPEC behemoth Saudi Arabia and rivaling Russia. U.S. crude production stood at 9.75 million bpd on Jan. 12, data from the Energy Information Administration showed.
Analysts and traders have recently warned that U.S. shale oil producers could ramp up production in the coming weeks as they look to take advantage of higher prices, potentially derailing an OPEC-led effort to curb excess supply.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures inched up 0.2% to $1.872 a gallon, while heating oil was little changed at $2.058 a gallon.
Natural gas futures rallied 6.3 cents, or 2%, to $3.248 per million British thermal units.