Oil Prices Steady After Last Week’s Gains

Oil prices were little changed on Monday following steady gains in the previous week with investors awaiting fresh clues over prospects for a trade deal between the United States and China, shrugging off concerns over steadily rising oil supplies.
Brent crude futures were at $63.30 a barrel, unchanged from the previous session. The contract rose 1.3% last week, CNBC reported.
West Texas Intermediate crude was also unchanged at $57.72 a barrel, having gained 0.8% last week.
Oil futures gained nearly 2% on Friday as comments from a top US official raised optimism for a US-China trade deal, but worries about increasing crude supplies capped prices.
The 16-month trade war between the world’s two biggest economies and oil consumers has slowed growth around the world and prompted analysts to lower forecasts for oil demand, raising concerns that a supply glut could develop in 2020.
According to Xinhua, China and United States had “constructive talks” on trade in a high-level phone call on Saturday.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Thursday it expected demand for its oil to fall in 2020, supporting a view among market participants that there is a case for the group and other producers like Russia — collectively known as ‘OPEC+’ — to maintain limits on production that were introduced to cope with a supply glut.
A monthly report from the International Energy Agency released on Thursday put downward pressure on prices, after it estimated that non-OPEC supply growth would increase to 2.3 million barrels per day next year compared, with 1.8 million bpd in 2019, citing production from the United States, Brazil, Norway and Guyana.