Oil prices boost earnings as Saudi Arabia and Russia promise increased compliance by Investing.com

Investing.com – Oil prices rose slightly on Monday, reinforcing the strong weekly recovery observed last week, as Saudi Arabia and Russia promised to make their agreement to cut production better. respected.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak promised on Sunday that Moscow would fully comply with the agreed reduction in production in the coming weeks, in apparent response to suggestions that the country had been slow to shoulder its responsibilities in the past few weeks. part of its agreement on limiting production with OPEC.

"Regarding the level of production covered by the agreement signed, we expect to reach these figures by the end of March (or) early April," said Novak. "It is earlier than at the same time. period two years ago. about a month. "

Transactions in New York rose 2 cents, or 0.03%, to 58.84 dollars a barrel, at 9:36 am EST (13:36 GMT), an increase of 4.3% last week.

At the same time, the benchmark for oil prices outside the United States edged up 6 cents or 0.09% to $ 67.22, an increase of 2%. 1% last week.

Unlike Russia, Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of OPEC, has cut production more than the 2018 agreement required to prevent global stocks from rising. British Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Sunday that he was adhering to the so-called "OPEC +" agreement but warned that oil markets were far from being balanced because stocks were still high.

"I am obviously optimistic about improving the implementation of our OPEC agreement, it is already solid by historical standards," Falih said.

At the same time, data released Friday by energy services firm Baker Hughes showed that the number of US oil drilling, an indicator of future output, has declined for a fourth consecutive week.

While last week's reading only dropped from one to 833, the continuing downward trend helps to dispel fears that overseas production is already near record 12.1 million bpd , would cancel OPEC + efforts to rebalance the market.

In other energy trade, the market advanced 0.37% to 1.8645 US dollar at 9:39 (13:39 GMT), while it declined 0.33% to 1.99613 US dollar per gallon.

Finally, trade increased 1.43% to 2,835 USD per million of British thermal unit.