Crude Oil Higher as OPEC+ Discuss Future Production Levels By Investing.com – Investing.com

Crude Oil Higher as OPEC+ Discuss Future Production Levels By Investing.com – Investing.com

© Reuters.

By Peter Nurse   

Investing.com -- Oil prices rose Tuesday, with traders expecting a group of top producers to continue to cautiously increase output in February following indications the Omicron Covid variant would have only a limited impact on demand. 

By 9 AM ET (1400 GMT), futures traded 1% higher at $76.86 a barrel and the contract fell 1%, to $79.75.

U.S. Gasoline RBOB Futures were up 1.3% at $2.2858 a gallon.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, are meeting Tuesday to decide upon future production levels. 

They have been gradually increasing global supply, lifting its output target each month since August by 400,000 barrels per day as they unwind the record production cuts of 10 million barrels a day that were made in 2020 as the pandemic caused demand to slump.

OPEC+ played down the impact on demand from the Omicron variant in a technical report, saying it would be "mild and short-lived."

This view was backed up, in part, by comments from the World Health Organization Tuesday, which suggested the Omicron variant is affecting the upper respiratory tract and not the lungs, causing